Tag Archives: cloud

Staring Up at Clouds During the Break

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The show at Old Warden included flying displays in the afternoon and evening. There was a gap of a couple of hours between the end of the first and the beginning of the second and I took the time to relax in my chair. I might have dozed for a little while, but I did spend some time staring up at the sky. The cloud formations looked really interesting to me. I didn’t spend time imagining what I might see in the shapes, but I did like the various patterns that were formed and were changing as I looked. The abstract nature of clouds is very cool.

Twisting the Clouds

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I posted some shots of the Ethiopian Cargo 777F in another post. What I didn’t include in that was the lovely effect as it came down the approach. There was some low-lying cloud to the south of the airport and, as it came through this, the trailing vortices twisted the cloud up beautifully. Stills down’s always show this as well as you would like so I did shoot some video to try and capture the effect.

Airliner Vapor In To SEA

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If you were to ask people what characteristic Seattle would be known for, I suspect a fair few people would tell you it is rain.  It is true that we have damp winters here but summers (while a little late in starting) are actually rather dry.  However, we can still have some humid conditions which can be good for forming vapor and, if you watch the jets heading in to SEA, you will often see vortices streaming off the flaps and the occasional puffs of moisture above the wings.

Occasionally, the conditions are just right and you get a lot more vapor.  Better still, if this happens in sunny conditions and the planes are slightly backlit, you can get some lovely rainbow effects showing up.  I got lucky with one such day.  Asiana had an A350 coming in at this time so I was treated to some interesting effects.  A Lufthansa 747 and CargoLogic 777F also arrived but I decided to go with video on those to show off the fleeting nature of the vapor is it formed and dissipated.

Comparison of Cloud Formation and Development

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I may be stuck in the house during work hours but the view out of the window doesn’t have to be totally ignored.  We have had a bunch of changeable weather recently and I have been shooting time lapses of the clouds.  The M6 works well for this but I have been using my fisheye lens on the M adaptor to get a wide view of what is going on out there.  It has proved to be interesting as a review the footage later.  Some of the skies have lots of activity while others don’t.

Sometimes we get the winds pulling the clouds across the sky but the overcast is thick and the lack of heat on the ground means that the clouds are pretty stable.  On other days we get almost constant development and dissipation of the clouds.  We are on a hill so we can get quite localized development around us.  Sometimes you have lower level clouds going one way and higher level clouds heading somewhere else.

I put together a video that includes a variety of clips from these time lapses to show how different things can be on different days (or even at different times of the same day!).

Backblaze Online Backup

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After asking a few people on Facebook for experience with online backups, I have recently committed to using Backblaze to provide a separate backup of my entire data.  There is a NAS backup system I use as well as BluRay disc based backups but all of these are in the same place so are vulnerable to a single event taking them out.  Having an online service was something I had contemplated for a while but finally I have done something about it.

I picked Backblaze because they have an unlimited data plan for about $70 per annum.  I could use Amazon Prime for some of it but their plans are quite specific and the add ones become quite expensive.  Backblaze is all in.  I have about 13Tb of data currently.  I switched my Xfinity plan to unlimited for the upload phase.  I have a good connection so, after about 14 days of uploading, I was about halfway through so it should be done within a month.  I shall then see what the impact on bandwidth is going forward.

I have already had cause to use it.  I had a hard drive failure in my desktop.  Almost everything on it was already backed up but it turns out there were a couple of folder on there which, while recreateable, were lost initially.  Fortunately, Backblaze had already backed them up so I was able to get them back quickly and easily.  I hope I don’t need it again but having the entire system backed up will make me feel a lot more comfortable and having it constantly working in the background will be easy.

Misty Morning In Index

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During my time off, we made a trip across the Cascades.  It’s not uncommon to find it misty/foggy as we drive from home towards the mountains in the morning.  As you get a little higher, you come out of the mist but the clouds will still be hanging on the sides of the mountains.  We stopped off in the little town of Index for a quick break.  The town sits right under some large cliff faces making it a popular place to climb.

On this morning, climbing would have been a bit of a cold and damp affair but, as the day wore on, it would have been lovely I imagine.  I liked the morning, though, with the clouds swirling around the hillsides.  It looks at first as if the area is still with the mist hanging over everything but, if you pay attention, it is clear just how much the clouds are swirling around with ever changing areas exposed or covered.  It is quite entrancing.

Evening Cloudscapes

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As the sun starts to set, the clouds that are a regular feature of the Pacific Northwest start to have a benefit.  They can be lit in all sorts of interesting ways and it is slightly lazy but still worthwhile to get shots of them.  The levels of contrast in the shot are fine with the naked eye but a bit of a stretch for a camera sensor.  It can do a decent enough job but it is the sort of thing where bracketing for HDR might give you more to work with so I did give that a go.

Clouds over Mt Rainier

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On one of my days off – taken in order to get my PTO balance down – I headed out for some aviation exploration.  The weather on this day was not great but, since I had struck it lucky on some of my other days off, I guess the odds were bound to swing the other way at some point.  While it was cloudy in Seattle, looking south to Mt Rainier, the sun was out on the mountain.  That didn’t mean it was cloud free, though.  There was a lot of cloud forming over the summit as the wind blew through so I shot a few images to make a pano of the mountain.  It would have been a great day to fly around the mountain but sadly that wasn’t to be.

Clouds Over Rainier

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If you live in the Seattle to Tacoma area, you get familiar with the phrase “the mountain is out” or “in”.  This refers to Mt Rainier which can be shrouded in cloud or out in the sun.  As a 14,000’ mountain, it is the most obvious landmark around here.  It also drives its own weather systems so the clouds on the mountain are always worth a look.  Not so long ago, I was quite taken by the cloud development over the mountain which was a bit different to what I am used to seeing.  The boat in the front was not helpful but I wanted to get a shot of the mountain so went for it.