Where does the ocean end and the atmosphere begin? From a couple thousand feet above, and perhaps even a ship's mast in some scenarios, the answer could be disorientingly ambiguous. From atop Cadillac Mountain, along the Maine coastline where the Appalachians meet the Atlantic, cloud layers transitioned from stratus to altostratus to cirrus and cirrostratus, in bands and strands including … [Read more...]
Eastern Splendor
A young, showy supercell spread across the eastern sky, basking in warm sunset glow. This storm moved quickly east-southeastward to join its even younger companion storms at distant right, in a big, wet complex that would drench a drought-parched patch of the south-central High Plains. Until the merger, this storm offered wonderment not only in its coloration, but richly textured cloud … [Read more...]
Vertical Svartifoss
One of Iceland’s many iconic waterfalls, Svartifoss might have the most peculiar framing: a natural amphitheater of vertical basalt columns, geologically arranged like organ pipes. Such mostly hexagonal columns form in cooling, contracting lava bodies not far underground. Erosion later exhumes them for us to admire, and for water, wind and ice to erode further. The world’s largest example of … [Read more...]
Thunder Music
Within just a few seconds, the trailing precipitation region of a growing thunderstorm complex shot forth all of this: a distant cloud-to-ground (CG) strike, a closer, intricately forked CG, and several crawler strands at varying heights and distances. All the electricity elicited a mesmerizing, almost pulsating tune of thunder for around 20 seconds -- something hauntingly close to a melody that … [Read more...]
Textured Lakeside Sunrise
What a deliciously complex sunrise this was. Clouds of every form and level, superimposed and juxtaposed, low, middle and high, reflected and refracted across the palette of hues. That light, in turn, rippled in fluid flickers off short-period waves of the lake, blown by a weakening outflow breeze. Mammatus and residual virga lingered from a formerly strong cluster of thunderstorms that had … [Read more...]
Welcome to Montana
Standing just a brief sprint inside Montana from the Wyoming line, I found a fitting foreground for a wet classic supercell astride the two states' border. The storm raced east-southeastward at over 50 mph from its early stages over extreme southern Montana, across the northeastern corner of Wyoming and into western South Dakota, ensuring my stay at this landmark (and any given stop along the … [Read more...]
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