Sunday, December 23, 2012

Time for a bit of 'cloudy education'?

First the education part, & then, second, a trip to one of favorite places, Marin Headlands, just north of San Francisco CA.

Here are two sites you should check out, if you hadn't already bumped into them:

http://cloudappreciationsociety.org/

The ten main cloud types.


Illustration © Anthony Haythornthwaite

And this one: 'atmospheric optics'
http://www.atoptics.co.uk/

Swedish Ice halos
Image credit: Juha Kungas - Nov 25,'12 at Are, Sweden.



"Light playing on water drops, dust or ice crystals in the atmosphere produces a host of visual spectacles - rainbows, halos, glories, coronas and many more. Some can be seen almost every day or so, some are once in a lifetime sights. Find out where to see them and how they are formed. Then seek and enjoy them outdoors."

A nice site, check it out.


On to the Marin Headlands, just north of SF, CA.
I've been here hundreds of times over the last 20 years, the most interesting thing about the place is what happens with fog in the summer as it tries to enter the bay, wrapping around and over the hills, and then burning off/ receding back to the ocean around midday and then surging east again as the afternoon goes on.
http://www.nps.gov/goga/marin-headlands.htm


I'm no meteorologist (well, maybe a rank amateur one) so I'll let wikipedia fill you in on scientific stuff:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fog

I'll return here for a blog post of a particular day w/ photos, but here's an overview/sampling:
Fog is sweet stuff, very unpredictable, very hypnotic.

Much more of this to come in future posts.
Like Arnold S. said as the 'Terminator'...
"I'll be back"


Sunday, December 9, 2012

Winter is here...

In Northern Ca. that means BIG weather coming in off the Pacific Ocean.
Cold low pressure systems from the north combine w/ the 'pineapple express' ( tropical moisture)... when the two collide? Wow, it packs a wallop.



But after the storm passes?
A pause... a tranquility...