Sunrise over the Kiamichi Valley brought a nice little surprise in the form of a middle-level standing-wave cloud, a ragged lenticular formation downwind from the Kiamichi Mountains (a range in the Ouachitas). Normally the terrain here, with rises "only" around 1000–1500 feet above the valley floors, would not provide enough lift in standing waves above the boundary layer to support such … [Read more...]
Contrails Crisscrossing
Flights over "Flyover Country" spread contrails commonly, and we residents of the Plains States are quite accustomed to skies like this when few other clouds festoon the wild blue. When humidity in the upper troposphere is high enough, but not saturated, condensed water droplets natively present in cooling jet exhaust freeze quickly to crystals, and can linger for many minutes and linear miles … [Read more...]
Lakeside Floral
Fall-blooming waterside wildflowers reflected beautifully on a Ouachita Mountains lake. This looked like the perfect place to pop a topwater lure across the water lilies and haul out a frog-slammin' hoss bass, but alas, no such fish fell to such splashy temptations. Instead it was time to be content with the natural beauty of the place and the moment, which was more than fine enough. 3 NNW … [Read more...]
North Rim Jolt
A dark desert storm delivered a 30,000-ampere parting kiss to the North Rim, as it headed southeast across the 5,000-foot-deep chasm of the Grand Canyon. Add up several million of these thunderstorms for flooding rains, along with about as many freeze-thaw cycles, and a turbulent major river. That's how a high, nearly flat plateau gets carved into wondrous and majestic forms like this in a … [Read more...]
Sidestepping Sizzlers
This was one of the last few visible cloud-to-ground events from a weakening, west-southwestward-moving storm cluster that had moved off the higher terrain east of Phoenix and north of Tucson. In real time, these two discharges flickered quickly, but not simultaneously, appearing to sidestep each other. Their thunder was one continuous report resonating for a long time across the desert … [Read more...]
Triple Tail Cloud
A triple tail cloud is not to be confused with the saltwater "tripletail" fish. Though those are fun on the hook, and hard fighters for their size, I prefer this kind of "catch". For as many supercells as I've witnessed, this much discrete tail-cloud banding has been extraordinarily rare—and combined with such great length, it was unique. The remarkable storm formed in southeastern Colorado, … [Read more...]
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