One of the most dramatic and interesting skies I've ever seen, outside Great Plains supercells, came in a casual jaunt from our mountain rental to experience an approaching squall line. The band of storms roared through the northern San Juan Mountains and surrounding countryside, its main core of rain, hail and wind having not even arrived yet, when its broadly swirling, terrain-redirected … [Read more...]
Fall Squall in the San Juans
After witnessing a dramatic mountain sky, we plunged in, pulled off, and let a squall line blasted past our location, with lightning, small hail and rain in lower elevations, and snow in the higher reaches of the San Juans. Strong outflow blew past us as well, evident in the bending of the tree branches. This thunderstorm complex would deposit the season's first snowfall upon the previously bare … [Read more...]
Stack in Sun and Fog
What a magical moment this was. On an otherwise drab, stereotypically dreary Olympic Coast day, overlying cirrostratus opened up, before the distant low-level stratus advected overhead with a beauty all its own. Sunshine through the gap illuminated the intermixing fresh and salt waters of the Quillayute River's estuary and the adjoining Pacific Ocean, while a flock of pelicans landed and noisily … [Read more...]
Scottsbluff Bow: South Side
[Part 3 of 3] From the same spot as the previous two photographs, the tiered cloud shelves of the south end of the bow presented themselves in different light than the middle and north parts, without quite as much deep-convective cloud material over them, or as much heavy precipitation behind. Instead, the south edge, at left, shoved a nice little haboob of dust along its way, well-removed from … [Read more...]
Scottsbluff Bow: Middle Apex
[Part 2 of 3] How would you like to see this coming right at you? From ground upward, the looming bow displayed layers of dust, scud, midlevel striations, and bizarre mid-upper level strands of translucence that reminded me of atmospheric Silly String. I hadn't witnessed anything quit like that before. There wasn't much time to stand in awe and admiration of the unique cloud display, however. … [Read more...]
Scottsbluff Bow: North Side
[Part 1 of 3] Aggregating upscale from a blend of high-based supercells and outflow-dominant multicells, a tremendous bow echo formed west of Scottsbluff and roared over town with increasingly better-defined outflow-cloud features—captivating yet menacing, wasting no haste in churning directly at us. The severe-wind producing system chased us in stepwise fashion as we stopped to photograph it, … [Read more...]
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