Tag Archives: clouds

Sunrise Skies Over Seattle

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One morning, as I left home it was still dark, but it was just getting to the time when the sun was due to creep above the horizon. As I headed south, I got treated to a wonderful red glow in the sky. Even better, there was a nice lenticular cloud sitting over the summit of Mt Rainier which was catching the morning light very nicely. There was no way that I was going to miss out on this unless the light changed so quickly that I could get somewhere to take the shot. Fortunately, that was not a problem, and the sky stayed looking great for quite some time. Mornings like this are rather special and are something to appreciate here.

Rainbows Over the Neighborhood

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With the arrival of fall, we get rain showing up here in the Pacific Northwest.  However, we can also get some sun breaking through at the end of the day – a bit of a feature of Seattle weather. When you combine rain and sun, it’s time for a rainbow. Twice in recent weeks, I looked outside the house late in the afternoon and saw impressive rainbows.  The first time, I just grabbed some shots with my phone and stitched them together afterwards. The second time, I grabbed the main camera and took some better shots although the rainbow might not be quite so impressive.

There is something really cool about a rainbow. I may have seen loads of them over the years but they are still a little exciting!

Repeating Cloud Patterns

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I was down in Burien on a day with some stronger winds from the north.  As I looked in the direction of Mt Rainier, my attention was drawn to the east and a string of clouds that had a very repetitive pattern.  I might have expected them to be downstream of a summit, but they were not obviously connected to a high point.  They did like someone had just discovered the clone tool in Photoshop and had not yet worked out how it creates repeating elements.  It took little time before they had dissipated, and I was left wondering what the cause was.

Into the Clouds Approaching LAX

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I have had a couple of work trips that took me to LA in the recent past (how recent may depend on when this gets posted), and the weather has not been great for either of them.  The second one coincided with some pretty horrendous weather for the region and our approach to LAX was a pretty bumpy one.  We actually landed from the ocean side which is pretty unusual for LAX.  The crew prepared the cabin for landing early and I decided the view of the cloud tops from the storm were worthy of video rather than stills.  Here is the resulting video of our approach.

Clouds in the Mountains

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The North Cascades Highway gets snowed in for the winter, so we decided to take a trip up there before the snow arrived.  It was also a good time for fall foliage, so we wanted to see what the mountains had to offer.  The colors in the trees as we drove up were very nice but, the higher you get, the more you are into the evergreens and the foliage becomes sparse.  However, we had something equally attractive awaiting us.

It was an overcast day as we drove up with any hints of sun from the lower levels gone as we got higher.  There were some really cool bands of clouds to see as we drove.  At one point we had the valley in sight and the tops of the mountains but a band of cloud in the middle.  It was while on a stretch of road with nowhere to stop so no shots of that.  However, as we got up to Diablo Lake and then Washington Pass, we got plenty of mountain tops in and out of the clouds.

I experimented with both normal shots and HDR.  With the shadow of the valleys and the brightness of the clouds, the dynamic range was pretty wide, and I thought HDR might give me some more processing options.  I was glad I made that choice as it really helped to get detail in all parts of the images.  That will be our last trip up there this year.  The snows will be getting heavy before too long and then it will be a waiting game until the pass is cleared in the spring.

Lots of Approach Vapor for Video

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Seattle is a place where you can get a fair bit of humidity at certain times of day.  Earlier in the day, there might be a lot of cloud but it will burn off as the day goes on and you have some sunny afternoons and evenings.  Watching the planes on approach to SEA on days like this can make for some rapidly changing conditions.  I was watching a bunch of jets heading towards SEA as they came through the clouds and into clear air.  They would be leaving trails in the cloud base behind them as they went but would be trailing their own little vapor fields behind them.

The conditions didn’t last long and soon the clouds were almost gone and the amount of vapor that they were pulling was minimizing.  The vapor was clearly aligned with the flaps on the wings so you could see where the air was being worked the hardest.  I did get some shots of them for this which I shall share later but the way in which the vapor puffs and dissipates is best seen in video, so I shot a bunch of that.  Most planes were coming directly over me but a couple of the wide-bodies were going to the inner runway so were offset from my location.

Unimaginative Sunset Shot

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One evening I was up at Everett for an aviation opportunity and, things were not looking good because the shot I was after was looking like it was going to be thwarted by a late arrival and the setting of the sun.  As it turned out, that provided a far better shot than I expected.  The sunset illuminated the clouds, and they provided great light for the arriving aircraft.  While I was waiting, I did look behind me and saw that the sky was glowing beautifully.  There was no way I wasn’t going to get a shot of that.  Sunset shots are rather passé but why not?

Wake Patterns in Clouds Over Edwards

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During the air show at Edwards AFB, there was a lot of maneuvering of aircraft high above the crowds.  There was a little cloud at higher levels – not enough to stop it being almost uncomfortably hot, but enough to be visible – and the planes that flew through this level left their wakes through the cloud layers breaking them up and forming patterns where they had been.  I thought this looked really cool and, because the show was backlit, the sun was coming through these patterns and the shadows made them appear more conspicuous.  A C-17 flew across at one point which gives you some idea of the scale of these interesting patterns in the sky.

Clouds Rolling Over The Hills

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As we took the ferry to San Juan Island, I spent a bit of time wandering the car deck and looking out at the other islands.  One of the hills to the north of us clearly had the wind running in from the water and, as the air rose up over the hill, the water vapor condensed out to form some nice clouds. They were rather distant but I figured I would try my luck with getting a shot.  The processing is a little harsh but I still like the shapes of the clouds and put up with it not being perfect.