Photographer's awe-inspiring video shows severe weather in a new light

A photographer and storm chaser who produced a mesmerizing time-lapse video of thunderstorms and supercells swirling in the northern Great Plains last year is back with another awe-inspiring film.

Nicolaus Wegner, a 34-year-old from Casper, Wyoming, spent May through September shooting all sorts of severe weather in Wyoming, Montana, South Dakota, Nebraska, and Colorado. The resulting 7-minute film, "Stormscapes 2," captures tornadoes, double rainbows, mesocyclones, lightning, and rare cloud formations in stunning HD clarity — all perfectly set to sweeping, dramatic electronic music.

"High plains storms can be incredibly beautiful," Wegner told Yahoo News. "And we have a lot of open terrain for them to traverse without causing a terrible amount of damage. So I thought it might be interesting to showcase how amazing these storms can be under the right circumstances."

According to Wegner, who runs Light Alive Photography with his wife, the time lapse of five months of footage took about three weeks to produce.

"There are plenty of tornado videos with people right under them," he said, "but I haven't seen too many comprehensive videos that are based around the natural beauty of the supercells and other severe weather storms themselves, at least to the scope I hope is presented in this video. Just about every type of high plains severe storm is in this video at one point or another."

The "Stormscapes" sequel has already received some high praise.

"It’s seriously one of the most incredible weather videos I have ever seen," Phil Plair, an astronomer and author, wrote on Slate. "From the opening sequence to the last frame, [it’s] magnificent."

Why are people so obsessed with weather videos in the first place?

"Not really sure," Wegner said. "For me it's the elements that create these storms. To think that wind, heat, terrain, and moisture under the right conditions can spin up into something so devastating and beautiful. These storms dwarf mountains in scale, and can take up tens of miles of space. They are like living organisms in some ways. Each one takes on a life of its own, and they are never the same."

For more of Wegner's work, you can visit his Facebook page. And be sure to check out his first time-lapse film, "Stormscapes," below.