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Today’s Arizona cloud is heartbreakingly beautiful for anyone (well, me) who has ever loved a Southwest desert. That the cloud is by category nothing much just reminds me that the everyday has its own peculiar joy. The clear definition of the limits of the rain are especially nicely shown thanks in part to the terrain, but here in Pennsylvania foothills we also for some reason take real pleasure — pride! — in seeing the edges of where a cloud finally got around to doing its thing… I love my Clouds A Day. Emily
<p style=”text-align: left;”>Actually it was that cloud that was really puzzling me. I hadn’t noticed the shape of the bottom. When I have seen lenticular clouds right next to cumulus they usually look at least as if they are roughly the same height, and I don’t usually see them in town here, more often in the countryside. There is always high ground upwind at the spot where I took the pic, though, because the town is in a hollow surrounded by hills. The cloud stayed still long enough to have its picture taken but was shortly overtaken by the storm from the west (I was facing east and a little north) — it wasn’t terribly windy, but all the clouds were moving at a pretty good clip. I really appreciate your taking the time to think about this and explain what could be going on — I ‘m afraid I am considered quite the eccentric among my more practically minded neighbors. So thank you!</p>
Hello, and thank you, I’m glad I’m back and that I’m welcome and that you like my picture. I didn’t mean to be enigmatic, it’s just that the Cloud of the Day for March 16 was a *very* intimidating arcus being pushed ahead of a very dark storm, while *my* clouds don’t look at all the same, although in a way they should: blue sky notwithstanding, it rained furiously and at length only five minutes later. I really would like to know how to label the white stuff in the picture, and I have no idea. We have always had lots of rain and so lots of clouds here (rural central Pennsylvania, US) but never, ever such vast shifts of weather so quickly — twenty degrees in temperature over a few hours, winds twenty mph bringing in a completely new weather and then dropping to deadly still for half a day. Overall half again as much rain as normal, according to those who keep the records. So the clouds are noticeably different from in earlier years, much more ephemeral, and more exotic, compared to the little fluffies we used to have. Since Welsh, according to the March 14 posting, has so many different kinds of rain, perhaps we should all go back to speaking that that tongue, once in use here but not in many years. Anyway, I keep photographing the clouds here, just because I like them, and they’re here and so am I.
Thank you for this wonderful post! It brought the whole exhibition to my attention for the first time; it’s a splendid site. Thank you!
Thank you, Michael and Keelin! Your clouds and their linings have enlightened my day, your kind gestures help me look up.
Well, linking Death Valley and a fjord is not exactly linking ‘random data’, in that the bottom of Death Valley was water-filled (the ‘sea’ there very occasionally does get water in it, enough for jokesters to float little boats in, and then there are the pupfish), and if you imagine what it would look like if the water actually came back, the view up to the surrounding mountains is not so different from a fjord. And the effect of the height of the mountains is of course enhanced by looking at them from the lowest spot on the planet, while the fjord mountains look more dramatic than mountains of similar height in, say, California, because you look at them from sea level, which if you are in California you cannot. Or one could of course think of the fjords without their water. I think Humboldt’s responses to mountains may well have been affected by his experience at sea. I don’t think it’s “random”. The link is in the presence, or not, of the ocean or other sea as a visible reference point.
Thank you so much, Graham, especially for the reference to Humboldt and to Wulf’s book. Thanks to your help, I have now located the phrase in an article on Humboldt by Bernard Debarbieux, writing (reference below to the English translation) about, specifically, Humboldt’s rhetoric surrounding mountains, characterized in terms of their role connecting the sea and the sky. He considered them as among other things rather like aerial versions of ocean reefs. Debarbieux locates the phrase “reefs or shoals of the aerial ocean” in Humboldt’s “Asie centrale. Recherches sur les chaines de montagnes et la climatologie comparee”, cited in a French edition of 1843. Thank you very much! Of course, now, if one stands in the low California desert of Death Valley and sees where the waters once stood, Humboldt’s observation seems even more natural — in a boat in a Norwegian fjord and looking up at the surrounding high terrain, I was immediately reminded of Death Valley — somewhat to the consternation of my companions! This does take us far from our interest in the nebulous, but I think it does speak to modern climate and environmental issues. Thank you again for your help!
Bernard Debarbieux, « The various figures of Mountains in Humboldt’s Science and
Rhetoric », Cybergeo : European Journal of Geography [En ligne], Epistémologie, Histoire
de la Géographie, Didactique, document 618, mis en ligne le 21 août 2012, consulté le 13
mai 2016. URL : http://cybergeo.revues.org/25488 ; DOI : 10.4000/cybergeo.25488I don’t see the photo. I wonder if you’re having the same difficulty I did — I tried posting a link but it didn’t “take”. Or is this just me not being able to figure out how to do it? Can someone savvier please help? Thanks.
Well, here’s the link. It’s in the Magazine section of the NYT, so go to the NYT home page > Magazine and scroll down. The pic is there and clickable.
