Starkly alluring, this steam-burned and denuded landscape contrasts starkly with the leaden storm clouds in the background, reminding us all that a real place in America isn't far removed in condition from the brutally inhospitable origins of our planet, billions of years before. Someday this entire scene, and unseen parts for miles around, all will blow skyward in an incredible series of … [Read more...]
Pulse Storm, Blasting Past Pileus
Narrow but intense, an updraft chimney of a low-shear, summertime pulse storm shoots skyward through multiple pileus layers and overshooting its own anvil, into the lower stratosphere. This storm would drift northward along an outflow boundary for another half hour or so before falling apart under the weight of its own cool, water-loaded downdrafts. Despite its brief lifespan, this cumulonimbus … [Read more...]
Morning Altocumulus Field
A delightful, artfully crafted blend of altocumuli (mainly floccus and translucidus) blanketed the Sunday morning sky in a peaceful office-park setting, with an inactive parking lot, calm winds and the impending heat of an August day delayed by the shade. What a shame it would be to miss a wondrous scene such as this by trudging routinely between workplace and vehicle, never knowing what goes … [Read more...]
Grand Prismatic Abstraction
Grand Prismatic Spring offers an otherworldly natural kaleidoscope of hues, as its hot volcanic waters flow from crystalline blue depths outward across bacterial shallows, then over its shoreline and across surrounding layers of mineral deposits. Yellowstone National Park WY (19 Sep 13) Looking NE 44.5219, -110.8413 … [Read more...]
Blistering Splash
This is one splish-splash where you should not take a bath. The gurgling cauldron of mineralized water sloshes to the surface from high-pressure underground chambers at temperatures that occasionally exceed the boiling point, which at this elevation is about 15 degree slower than at sea level—still more than enough to render awful burns. Instead it's best simply to appreciate the primeval beauty … [Read more...]
Hanging Aerial Filament
Just like the previous shot of aerial filaments, we were located on the northwest side of a band of elevated thunderstorms, although the cloud-to-air lightning discharges weren't quite as frequent in this event. I call this the "hanging" filament because the lightning appears to dangle from the surrounding cloud material, as if it wished to reach ground but gave up along the way. In truth, this … [Read more...]
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