Tag: timelapse

“The Haboob”
Haboobs are a dust storm driven by the strong winds at the forefront of weather fronts and thunderstorms. Those powerful winds pick up dust in arid and semi-arid landscapes, creating billowing, turbulent clouds that appear downright apocalyptic.
This particular haboob formed in Arizona in August 2025 and was caught in timelapse by photographer and storm chaser Mike Olbinski. The visuals–as always–are incredible. Definitely watch to the very end, as the haboob advances on the runway at Sky Harbor Airport. The tension is palpable as you watch flights line up and try to make it off the ground before the haboob swallows them. (Video and image credit: M. Olbinski)
Fediverse Reactions
March 20, 2026
“Crystal Garden – Seasons”
In this latest project, the Beauty of Science team explores colorful crystallization as chemicals precipitate out of evaporating solutions. The variety of shapes and colors is incredible. To see many more of these crystalline “gardens,” check out the video below and the project’s webpage. (Video and image credit: W. Zhu/Beauty of Science; via Colossal)
Fediverse Reactions
March 6, 2026
Glacier Timelines
Over the past 150 years, Switzerland’s glaciers have retreated up the alpine slopes, eaten away by warming temperatures induced by industrialization. But such changes can be difficult for people to visualize, so artist Fabian Oefner set out to make these changes more comprehensible. These photographs — showing the Rhone and Trift glaciers — are the result. Oefner took the glacial extent records dating back into the 1800s and programmed them into a drone. Lit by LED, the drone flew each year’s profile over the mountainside, with Oefner capturing the path through long-exposure photography. When all the paths are combined, viewers can see the glacier’s history written on its very slopes. The effect is, fittingly, ghost-like. We see a glimpse of the glacier as it was, laid over its current remains. (Image credit: F. Oefner; video credit: Google Arts and Culture)
Fediverse Reactions
August 1, 2025
“C R Y S T A L S”
In “C R Y S T A L S,” filmmaker Thomas Blanchard captures the slow, inexorable growth of potassium phosphate crystals. He took over 150,000 images — one per minute — to document the way crystals formed as the originally transparent liquid evaporated. Some crystals branch into fractals. Others bulge outward like a condensing cloud or a sprouting mushroom. (Video and image credit: T. Blanchard)
Fediverse Reactions
June 20, 2025
“Winter”
Little by little, snow and ice transform the landscape in Jamie Scott’s film “Winter.” From individual snowflakes to entire forest vistas, the timelapses showcase how winter remakes every surface in its image. The growing icicles show freezing in action, but I especially love seeing the “flow” brought about by progressively greater snowfall. Tree limbs bow, shrubs swell, and riverbanks contract as the snow gets thicker. And that final shot that pulls out from single snowflakes to the entire forest? Stunning! (Video and image credit: J. Scott et al.; via Colossal)
January 26, 2024
“Black Ice”
Ice, black ink, and flowers combine in filmmaker Christopher Dormoy’s “Black Ice.” Filmed during the COVID-19 lockdowns, the video is an exploration of the creativity one can achieve when constrained. I especially enjoy seeing the tiny bubbles trapped in the ice escape as ink billows past, and the views of ice tunnels invaded by ink are incredibly cool. For a behind-the-scenes look at how Dormoy achieved many of the shots, see this video. (Video and image credit: C. Dormoy)
September 15, 2023
“Vorticity 5”
Photographer and stormchaser extraordinaire Mike Olbinski is back with the fifth volume in his “Vorticity” series. Shot over the 2022 and 2023 tornado seasons in the U.S. Central Plains, this edition has virtually everything: supercells, microbursts, lightning, tornadoes, and haboobs. There’s towering convection and churning, swirling turbulence. It’s a spectacular look at the power and grandeur of our atmosphere. (Video and image credit: M. Olbinski)
September 1, 2023
“Eternal Spring”
With every spring comes the thaw. Warming temperatures melt winter’s ice, carving it away to reveal the surfaces beneath. Christopher Dormoy’s macroscale timelapse “Eternal Spring” captures this dynamic, showing the process drop-by-drop and rivulet-by-rivulet. It’s also a commentary on melting in general as human-driven climate change chips away at ice that formed over millennia. (Video and image credit: C. Dormoy)
June 16, 2023
“Timedrift II”
As a teenager, I climbed Mount Kilimanjaro. The final ascent began around midnight, and we climbed through the dark, through sunrise, and into the early morning. I remember pausing at one point, just as the sun was rising, and looking out at the clouds thousands of meters below. From that height, they looked like an ocean, rippled with lavender waves. Timelapse films like this one, by filmmaker Martin Heck, remind me of that morning and the sense that I had of the sky as an ocean, flowing, crashing, and surging in ways we cannot appreciate until we slow down and look closer. (Image and video credit: M. Heck/Timestorm Films)
August 5, 2022
“Reverent”
Today, enjoy this moody black-and-white short film of storm timelapses. Photographer Mike Olbinski is a master of this subject. I never tire of watching his towering convective supercell thunderstorms or his picturesque microbursts. The lightning-lit clouds in the latter half of the film are particularly spectacular (assuming you do not have sensitivities to flashing lights). And there are a few haboobs and a tornado in there for good measure, too. (Image and video credit: M. Olbinski)
April 22, 2022