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Be safe. Looks like you’re in for a direct hit. Extreme weather is awesome as long as you can observe it, not suffer it!
Well, my love of Bowie and of clouds didn’t really intersect. But I thought this cover featured clouds, so a quick Google search (it’s one of the albums I don’t have!) brought up this selection. I thought it looked good repeated in Google:
I was in bed at 7.30 New Year’s Eve, though awake at midnight with a cold and slight fever. (Thank you Radio 4 and Jarvis Cocker for a beautiful programme to glide into midnight!)
I seem to remember just grey skies for much of new year (I was on holiday in the UK and staying with a friend). So I’m going to cheat and post one of the few pics I had the energy to take all holiday, and post a January 4th sunrise shot. New year, but not new year’s day.
It’s probably easy to work out, but I would ask Eratosthenes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EratosthenesIt’s probably easy to work out, but I would ask Eratosthenes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EratosthenesNice sequence. Skies after a typhoon are often beautiful – as though the typhoon is denying all the atmospheric greyness and violence to show off its other side!
People may enjoy this video of the volcanic cloud over an island to the south of Japan. 3 sizeable earthquakes and a volcano this week: Japan seems restless!
http://ajw.asahi.com/article/behind_news/social_affairs/AJ201505310025A little self indulgence from a couple of flights between London and Tokyo:
Frost/condensation in an airplane window at sunrise
Chemtr… I mean contrail, obviously [sarcasm, BTW]
I liked this one, with a blue-white sky above white stratus. It’s restful enough to be my wallpaper.
The sea below the clouds below
Tons of hardware above the clouds
The sea below the clouds below turns golden. This was the coast of Japan. I’m not sure over which part precisely, but generally this was part of the sea-area that rose up in tsunami form 4 years ago.
The mountains of JapanThought I’d cheat a bit for this one. I was actually on the ground, just on a hill some distance from Mount Fuji, but still above the clouds. Unfortunately, it was taken on an old, low-res digital camera. I’ll have to return some day and get a decent shot!
We had an eclipse a couple of years ago in Japan, and it was also cloudy then. Of course, thick cloud pretty much ruins the effect. But, even a reasonably general cloud covering is actually quite helpful for watching a solar eclipse. You can look directly at the sun and see the results. OK, no dramatic corona shots or anything, but clouds are actually quite a positive help. So is all the complaining another example of negativity about clouds? :-) Or was it generally to thick to see anything in most parts of Britain?
The range of cloud representation in historical paintings is large. Some would have “accurately” painted clouds (from memory and changing perception, of course – the average cloud doesn’t last long enough to paint while looking at it, but the cloud types would last). Some would aim for and hit both accuracy and impression, like Turner (or a Leonardo sketch). Others go for accuracy over impression or more often vice versa. Perhaps clouds aren’t accurate themselves and are very open to impression in their representation.
This used to be on the old forum, but I removed all my photos (by accident) from the old site. So just because this is the topic, here’s my both Turner- and Japanese screen-inspired storm cloud over Tokyo. (“Inspired” but lacking, naturally!)
You’ve got a selection of only cumulus but in various forms there, I’d say.
If you wanted to get a little more technical (not my forte, so others may disagree!) I’d list them as:
– “March of the Guards to Finchley”: cumulus mediocris (ie not the smallest, humblest form – humulis)
– “A Flagship”: cumulus congestus (they’re thicker, letting through less light, and the white ones you can see lit further away are definitely a congestus variant)
– “The Charterhouse” is more halfway. Cumulus mediocris again? or perhaps the whiter one in the centre starts from the horizon, in which case it’s a definite congestus. This one looks a little “between two stools”: is a rain coming, is it mediocris becoming congestus? Did he paint it as it really was or add in a bit of light and shade drama?
– “Captain Thomas Coram”: a bit hard to tell. It’s stratus and I’d say stratocumulus from what appears in the painting to be density, size and guesstimate of height. Could be altocumulus, you’d need a bit more clarity.
– “A Piping Shepherd Boy”: more stratocumulus in the foreground and a cumulus congestus rising behind
– “Christ Appearing”: cumulonimbus, I’d say. There’s definitely stormy weather with these. And some lower level cumulus fractus – raggedy and torn – in the top right. The painter has the sun hitting the cloud in the centre for drama, and it allows for a the beam of sunlight that hits the figures to be a possibility. In the background, there’s too much cloud density to allow a beam through
– “A View of the Cannaregio”: The top of the central cloud is a little raggedy. Perhaps Canaletto was painting a cumulonimbus calvus, not a fuly formed cumulonimbus with an anvil shaped top. You could argue it’s just cumulus congestus, but too big and it looks like it’s towering from the horizon, and developing at the top.
“Theodore Jacobsen”: stratocumulus, I think. Just various forms of cumulus, joined together. Looks congestus on the horizon and thickening overhead, but the overhead thickening is for drama and the hole in the strato- is for composition (if this was a photo, that would be a lucky placement, as a painting it’s obviously constructed!)Of course, defining clouds isn’t an exact science (and I’m not an exact person) but that’s my estimate on height, density, shape etc!
And real lightning – the most on earth- here:
http://www.theguardian.com/travel/2015/mar/11/venezuela-lightning-lake-maracaibo
