The last rainy vestiges of a dying storm cast the setting sun’s warm glow across a mountainous landscape. Many late-spring and summer days feature afternoon eruptions of high-based thunderstorms over the Colorado Front Range, leaving behind cloud debris that beautifies and imparts rich textures to the sky. On this day, the storms went up late, thanks to a reasonably strong cap above the moist surface air, so that their showery remnants still lingered at the sunset hour. Within yet another ninety minutes, the sky was virtually clear, the surface air cooled by a combination of rain and radiative heat loss, the clouds aloft blown eastward and evaporated. One of the greatest joys about observing the sky isn’t always in how it looks, but in how it changes over a short time.
2 NW Broomfield CO (16 Jun 8) Looking WNW
38.9467, -105.103Fiery Front Range Sunset
The last rainy vestiges of a dying storm cast the setting sun’s warm glow across a mountainous landscape. Many late-spring and summer days feature afternoon eruptions of high-based thunderstorms over the Colorado Front Range, leaving behind cloud debris that beautifies and imparts rich textures to the sky. On this day, the storms went up late, thanks to a reasonably strong cap above the moist surface air, so that their showery remnants still lingered at the sunset hour. Within yet another ninety minutes, the sky was virtually clear, the surface air cooled by a combination of rain and radiative heat loss, the clouds aloft blown eastward and evaporated. One of the greatest joys about observing the sky isn’t always in how it looks, but in how it changes over a short time.
2 NW Broomfield CO (16 Jun 8) Looking WNW
38.9467, -105.103