Tag: clouds

Photography

Clouds at Sunset

Shelly

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It got cold last night, and the wind picked up. I woke up at about 5am when the power went out. It was absolutely silent, except for the sound of the wind howling. It’s hard to sleep when it’s that quiet. Thankfully, the power came back on a couple of hours later.

The wind kept blowing all day, and we even had a few snow flurries. It was a good day for sitting on the couch with hot cocoa and toast, keeping warm under a blanket with the dog. (Miss Brown is the world’s very best hot water bottle.)

Photography

Cirrostratus

Shelly

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Cirrostratus Clouds Before Sunset

The clouds thinned and thickened and thinned again today, but they never cleared away completely. I stopped at the grocery store after work, and as I was leaving, I got out my camera and took a couple of photos of the sky.

Cirrostratus are sheets of high, wispy clouds. They are usually thin enough to see the sun and moon through, and they often produce beautiful halos and arcs. When these clouds thicken, as they were starting to do toward the west (the darker area to the lower right), it usually means that a front is approaching. We’re supposed to get snow and all manner of icy foulness starting tonight and lasting for, I think, about 24 hours.

Photography

Belt of Venus and Clouds at Sunset

Shelly

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This was the view from my patio at 6:48pm.

I sometimes feel a little weird leaving the patio blinds open so late, because I know that if there is anyone in the back field, they can see in; but on the other hand, if I closed them as soon as it started to get dark, I would miss stuff like this. I looked up from reading, and saw a wonderful pink tinged, rippled sky. The pink had faded from the clouds in the time it took to grab my camera, but there was still enough light to get a passable photo of the clouds.

Photography

Clouds

Shelly

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It rained earlier today, but for the most part, the sky has been kind of yucky and boring. We have huge, puffy white clouds right now, with sunshine, but who knows how long that will last? I wasn’t able to get any decent photos, so I Photoshopped the hell of this one. I lowered the saturation, warmed up the color, darkened it, and increased the contrast.

Photography

Perseids

Shelly

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Mammatus clouds

The annual Perseid meteor shower will be at its peak this weekend. Because of the full moon, it’s not expected to be as stunning as it could be, but it’s still worth checking out. The moon rises at about 10pm, so the time between sunset and 10:00 is probably your best shot. I recommend slathering on some bug repellant and heading out to the back yard with either a reclining beach chair or a pool floaty. Being horizontal is definitely best, so you won’t strain your neck.

The weather here has been the pits for sky watching. It stormed on and off all day yesterday, and is supposed to do the same today. It ought to clear up tomorrow, though, so hopefully I’ll get a chance to see some meteors.

For more information on the Perseid shower, check out SpaceWeather.com.

Photography

Stormblogging

Shelly

A storm cell just passed overhead. Hoo-boy! It moved through quickly, thankfully, and we didn’t get the worst of it. North of us, there was a lot of rotation and tennis ball sized hail. We didn’t get any hail–in fact, we only got a few drops of rain–but there was rotation and a lot of movement in the clouds. Eeep!

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After the storm passed, the sun came out and lit up the towering cloud bank. Whew!

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Photography

The Calm Between the Storms

Shelly

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Wednesday evening, we had a couple of waves of storms pass through. The sky tried, unsuccessfully, to clear between the two cells. When a bank of tall clouds moved in front of the sun, I went inside to get my camera, in hopes of getting in on some crepuscular ray action. It’s subtle, but it’s there in the second and third photos. There is also a nice mix of thin, whispy clouds and tall, dense ones. The first photo is of a neat double arch formation that hovered over my neighbor’s barn.