My head in the clouds

I can't help it - I've got a thing for clouds. I love big fluffy white clouds, dark ominous storm clouds, pastel-colored morning clouds, and bold, dramatic sunset clouds. And I can't resist photographing them.



I even started a gallery on my website for them (click on any of these photos to be taken to the gallery). I haven't been doing a great job uploading them, especially considering how many images are on my hard drive. So I added three this morning as I was contemplating a redesign for my entire site and will go through my archives and upload more soon.

Although we get lots of cloudless skies here in SoCal, my house is in a great location for cloud spotting when we do have clouds. To the north/east I get big billowy, mushrooming clouds that grow right before your eyes like the ones in the photo above, especially right after a storm.

To the west when the sun is about to set I can get some really dramatic underlighting. Of course, every time I see this I slap myself because I didn't run down to the beach that evening and I know I'll never make down there before the sun actually sets. Every time I do head to the beach in anticipation I get boring skies (although last weekend we saw the most unbelievably intense rainbow colored afterglow about a half hour after sunset, but I was on the phone with my Dad and couldn't get my gear set back up in time!).

This is a typical sunset cloud formation seen from my backyard. Just one or two thin lines of low, gently twisting and rolling cloud.



This morning I saw popcorn clouds a few minutes after sunrise (I like to drink my coffee outside and watch the sunrise every morning that I can).



I've only seen lenticularis clouds once so far, and I had a wide-angle lens on my camera so you can't really tell that's what they are (darn it!). Still hoping to someday see Kelvin-Helmholtz wave clouds and a fallstreak hole.

If you're a cloud geek like me, a really cool site to check out is The Cloud Appreciation Society. Lots of great photos of some really cool cloud formations, including most of the rare ones.

Yeah, I know...I haven't been out on a trail in what seems like forever. Since May, actually. Too much going on lately. But very soon, trail run in the Sierras!

Nothing after the jump.