CloudSpirit

Everyone knows that the sky is blue (day) or black (night) but it can take on the colors of the rainbow when atmospheric optics are at play. This short slide show used my best images/videos and shows the many other colors that can occur. Iridescent clouds, rainbows, and multi-color northern lights are depicted. Enjoy!

Best clip of these severe weather events.

Interesting storm clips taken over the years.

Taken over the years.

Time Lapse of thunderstorms that eventually produced a tornado. These tornadoes were too distant to see in this clip but the cloud motion is impressive nevertheless.

Just before dawn this northern lights display peaked.

Interesting video time lapse clip of some outstanding mammatus clouds.

My best images of crepuscular rays (slide show).

Best examples of distant thunderstorms (thunderheads) mostly taken from Cheyenne, Wyoming 2015-2020.

Using several cameras, I attempted to capture various aspects of a severe thunderstorm that ultimately produced a very photogenic but short lived tornado. I highlighted features in the structure of the storm for those with less meteorology background. This was my first time witnessing and imaging a live tornado. My area was spared baseball size hail, heavy downpours, and damaging winds as the forming tornado just passed one mile west of me. I recorded video handheld in somewhat dangerous conditions and you can see the sped up time lapse bouncing all over; but you get the idea. I hope you enjoy watching this rather interesting weather event.

My best images depicting panoramas of morning and evening fire skies.

Taken between 2011-2020 at various locations at I lived at. Very few summers in the western states escape weeks of smoke filled skies. Weather satellite reveals that there are often several large wild fires occurring at the same time. In 2020, nearby fires were still visible in early November!

The Mullen Fire is a wildfire that has burned (beetle killed spruce and pine) over 176,840 acres (71,560 ha), 28 miles (45 km) west of Laramie, Wyoming. The fire started on September 17, 2020 in the Savage Run Wilderness of Carbon County, and spread to Albany County. On September 30, it spread into Jackson County, Colorado. The cause is unknown. It burned close to the Rob Roy Reservoir, and Platte River Wilderness. On October 15, 2020, the fire was estimated to span 25 miles north to south, and 23 miles east to west. In Cheyenne, Wyoming, air quality reach hazardous levels several times during the period from 17 September - 21 October. Satellite image clearly shows the afternoon explosion of smoke over southeast Wyoming. Several large fires south of the Mullen Fire are clearly evident in northern Colorado. Telephoto images/video taken over 70 miles away shows the convective nature of the billowing smoke.

Scattered thunderstorms throughout the day moistened the air so that at sunset, with a clear western horizon, clouds to the east received intense sun's rays. This resulted in a rather colorful sunset as lightning occasional flashed. This time lapse covers nearly 1h45m and is sped up 20x. Music by Tryad entitled "The Rising". You can download their FREE MUSIC at: https://www.jamendo.com/artist/104/tryad?language=en

June 16th, 2016 the hottest day so far this year and thunderstorms popped up late afternoon to my northwest. This sequence was more than 2.5 hours long as an intense thunderstorm just passed northeast of me with a rather well defined hail shaft (white falling from the clouds). This system was moving to the ESE at only 10 mph. As it moved east at sunset, the thunderstorm brightened to almost blinding intensity. Shortly thereafter, a very intense lightning storm developed: https://www.flickr.com/photos/79387036@N07/26984189344/in/dateposted-public/ Music: Empty by Tryad (public domain)

Under clear skies, an isolated thunderstorm form an hour before sunset. Time lapse shows the development of convection and the eventually reddening of the clouds as the last rays of the sun reached the storm. Individual panoramas taken minutes apart shows the development and evolution of the storm (note the deepening colors and interesting cloud structure under the spreading anvil). Taken 22 July 2017. Music by Antonio Vivaldi.

Time Lapse taken at maximum brightness of Comet NEWISE (9-18 July 2020) from Cheyenne, Wyoming followed by the best still images from my Nikkor 180mm f/2.8 lens. This comet was nearly circumpolar thus was visible after sunset and before sunrise (only going partly below the horizon around local midnight).

Clouds dominated at sunset as the eclipsed moon rose. However, after 30 minutes the skies cleared and I was able to captured the 4th total lunar eclipse visible over the US during the past two years. It was by far the best of the group. During this rather dark mid-totality, there was a lot of subtle details (shades of light and dark) within the umbra shadow on the moon. Between full moon and mid totality, my exposures varied from 1/2000th to 2.5 secs. The wide angle sequence shows the dramatic change in brightness throughout the eclipse. Details on the lenses used is shown on the initial video. Nikon d7000 and d7100 cameras were used. Music: Dawn by Barry van Oudtshoorn

The Great Total Solar Eclipse of 21 August 2017 as recorded from near Glendo State Park, Wyoming. Perfect skies helped deliver an amazing 2 minutes and 29 seconds of totality. This clip shows how the moon's shadow changed daylight to deep twilight in just a minute before totality. This was my 3rd totality (7Mar70 -North Carolina), 30Jun73-Sahara Africa). I was under overcast skies for the 10Jul72 eclipse in Quebec, Canada.

A masive solar storm (G3 intensity) produced a Kp7 to Kp8 index on 27-28 May 2017. Alerted by Spaceweather.com, I set up to 35mm dSLR cameras (11-16 tokina f/2.8 widefield and Nikkor 35mm f/1.4 lenses). As soon as deep twilight arrived, the aurora was visible, especially a nearly stationary arc over the northwest horizon. Some call this structure "S.T.E.V.E." but I am not exactly sure what it was. Also: STEVE (Strong Thermal Emission Velocity Enhancement) looks like an aurora, but it is not. The phenomenon is caused by hot (3000°C) ribbons of gas flowing through Earth’s magnetosphere at speeds exceeding 6 km/s (13,000 mph). These ribbons appear during some geomagnetic storms, revealing themselves by their soft purple/mauve glow. It appeared to rotate and brighten as the arc narrowed. I call this an auronado (auror tornado) for a lack of a better description. After midnight, a green glow on the northern horizon finally brokeout into a substorm with multiple colors and rays around 1:47AM mountain time. Seeing th aurora borealis at 41N is pretty rare, especially with recent streaks of zero sunspots. Anyway, I hope you enjoy this timelapse clip and slides as much as I enjoyed taking them.

A walk around my neighborhood with my dogs.

Taken between 1-5 July 2021 from Cheyenne, Wyoming.

July 9, 2021 was a day with severe weather, thunderstorms, lightning, mammatus clouds, and more.

A stationary front along the Wyoming/Colorado border provided strong instability for an array of weather events. I've included two satellite loops showing two particularly severe thunderstorms and what they looked like at ground level. The first storm dropped golf ball size hail but turned away at the last minute and I was spared. This rain/low cloud storm was not very photogenic. However, the 2nd storm produced beautiful mammatus both before and after the storm passed by. The day ended with a nice fire sky sunset.

Several severe thunderstorms moved through this active weather day. The 2nd storm was a really close call as I was on the edge of it for over an hour. At the end of the day, mammatus clouds formed under a well developed anvil. Dark Star 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=USUAN1100534 Artist: http://incompetech.com/