I'm one of those people who notice, and often point out, oddly shaped clouds. My husband metaphorically rolls his eyes at me and says yes, dear and most of my friends look at me like I sprouted a second head. So what? I like to look up, and if I notice something interesting I like to share. This February while volunteering at an aid station at the Grandmaster Ultras race in Littlefield, Arizona I was the only one up and moving around just before sunrise on the second day of the race, bundled in multiple layers against the cold. I was already planning on photographing the sunrise, which was disappointingly underwhelming. I spun a slow circle not far from camp, trying to see if anything interesting was happening across the small piece of desert we were calling home, when I noticed the clouds above a distant mountain range. These clouds, called Kelvin-Helmoltz clouds, are formed by two different wind speeds in the atmosphere. Also known as billows, they are essentially the same as ocean waves breaking on a beach, where the top travels faster than the bottom, causing them to curl over themselves and crash downwards. I've seen pictures of them before, most people have, but have never seen the phenomenon in person. I was delighted, and not at all ashamed of how long I stood out there taking pictures until the clouds melded back together into a single band.
Leave me a comment and tell me if you've seen clouds like these before! Where did you see them?
No comments:
Post a Comment