Each summer since 2009, photographer Mitch Dobrowner and guide Roger Hill have driven through the Great Plains and high deserts of the United States in search of these jaw-dropping forces of nature. When they find them, Dobrowner pulls out his camera and takes breathtaking black and white photos that capture the enormity and intensity of these churning atmospheric formations.

“On just the second day I was chasing storms I found myself standing there and I was like, ‘Holy shit, you have to be kidding me,’” Dobrowner says. “I had never seen anything like it.”

Unlike photos that focus on the chaos these storms often leave behind — destroyed houses, uprooted trees — Dobrowner’s images concentrate on the natural beauty of storms themselves as they lumber through unoccupied territory.