CloudSpirit

A busy weather day for mid-May. Dense fog in the morning followed by noon time thunderstorms and Mammatus cloud. When skies cleared winds reached 60 mph in gusts. Song: Dark Tranquility Artist: Anno Domini Beats Album: Dark Tranquility Licensed by: YouTube Audio Library

After reaching 81F, a strong cold front moved through late afternoon. The clouds responded with lots of turbulence and chaotic structure. The pattern was further enhanced as precipitation fell from the cloud base and instantly evaporated into 15% relative humidity. Taken with iPhone 11 Pro Max

A satellite and ground view of overcast skies with a hint of virga.

A search through my archives uncovered this 18 month old image of a beautiful fire sky. It is never too late to share an image like this.

I decided to reprocess this wonderful northern lights display by tweaking my raw images to better contrast, color, and noise reduction.

This noon time cloudscape occurred after a morning minimum temperature of 1 degree F! This has to be the coldest temperature so late in the spring for the Cheyenne, Wyoming area. As the inversion (warm air over cold air) mixed out, temperatures recovered to 33F. However, winds increased to 27mph with gusts to 45 mph at the time of this image (wind chill dipped to 15F). Clouds tried to develop vertically but were capped by a stable (warmer layer aloft). Snow showers are seen at the extreme right. Dark Walk by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license.

A collection of time lapses.

These highest of clouds are at the level of the northern lights. They occur near the summer solstice at high latitudes and are seen as an electric blue color.

On March 30, 2022, a brief G1 Solar Storm impacted the earth and created a northern lights display that was visible over the northern high plains to Washington State. For my location in southeastern Wyoming, the aurora was visible only as a deep red glow without structure. This type of display is referred to as a photographic vs. visual aurora. The camera "sees" much more than the eye. Red glow in the night sky is difficult to detect because the eye's cone receptors are just not physically made for seeing contrast. This event was very unusual in that the Kp of 4.5 was well under the ~Kp of 7.5 that is required to detect northern lights from Cheyenne, WY (geomagnetic latitude of 50N). The bright light at left is due north. The northern lights were about 1000 miles to my north. What you are seeing in this clip is just the top of the aurora where oxygen at 300 miles up is being energized to create the red color. This clip begins at 9:27PM MDT and ends at 10:39PM. The peak aurora is obvious at 10:13PM. A fujifilm X-T3, 16-55mm Fujifilm lens at ~20mm, F/3.2, iso2500, exp 13s with 3 sec gap between frames (510 frames played back at 10ps), RAW format post processed in Photoshop cc.

On the morning of March 30, under cloudless blue skies, extensive contrail formation occurred over western Nebraska and southeast Wyoming (Flyover routes). Most contrails expanded to form delicate cirrocumulus formations that lasted for several hours. Song: Floating Home Artist: Brian Bolger

This time lapse shows low stratocumulus clouds moving south, high cirrus clouds moving north and mid-level atlocumulus clouds (middle of clip) moving east. It is primarily the surface wind direction that determines whether the wind is backing or veering with height. A backing wind turns counterclockwise with height. A north wind at the surface and a westerly wind aloft is an example of a wind that is backing. A north wind generally brings in cooler air.

Fire sky time lapse from late Jan to early Mar using the GoPro10.

Using a GoPro 10, I time-lapsed a day that started with a nice fire sky sunrise that had a mock sun and sun pillar and ended with a cluster of lenticular "UFO" clouds.

Unusual mild weather continuous to usher in high clouds and beautiful red-orange-pink skies at dusk and dawn.

Various time lapse and images taken 1-11 Jan 22.

Winds gusting to 100 miles (30 Dec) were occurring 100 miles to my north. These extraordinary shaped clouds reveals the extreme turbulence that was occurring. Fortunately, winds were only 5mph at my location. Expecting wind chill temperatures of -20F in the next 36 hours with a possibility of 6 inches of snow.

My favorite clouds for colorful sunrises & sunsets. Also, these clouds have really cool structures.

Clouds and snow showers captured on a GoPro 10 in time lapse.

During the 2nd week of Dec 21, several sunrises and sunsets turned the skies into fire. Time lapse and still images are accompanied by relaxing music. Enjoy!

Taken from 2-6 Dec 2021. Persistent high clouds have provided vivid fire skies. On 3 Dec, Comet Leonard was successfully captured in a time lapse. Note how fast the comet moved in under three hours. All images taken with GoPro 10.

More fiery Skies from Cheyenne, Wyoming.

From a fire sky sunrise to an overhead lenticular cloud at sunset, this day provided lots of sky photo opportunities.

While high clouds don't make the best fire skies, as this week passed, the skies become redder and redder. Meditation Impromptu 02 by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Source: http://incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/index.html?isrc=USUAN1100162 Artist: http://incompetech.com/

My Maltese pup was frustrated with his attempt to get to his food.

My Border Collie gives up any chance to dominate my Maltese. He looks guilty at the end of the clip.