The Next Wave

On Wednesday, April 10th, we had wave upon wave of storms move through the central and southern states.  My area was fortunate not to have any highwinds or hail, but he sure had torrential downpours!  This shot was taken mid-morning from our back porch, as one of the wall clouds was forming in the west, and getting ready to move over us. 

I took this image with the panorama mode of my Sony A55 dslr.  Using this, I can press the shutter button while facing one end of my intended image, and hold it down as I pan slowly (and levelly, if that's a word) to the other end.  The camera then "stitches" it all together for me -- which is much nicer for me than having to use special software (and special skills) to do this manually.  Many of the newer "point and shoot" cameras have this feature too -- so if you are planning any vacation travel to any areas with beautiful vistas, it might be time to upgrade your camera.  Come to think of it, I'm pretty sure the iPhone 5 does panoramas too -- something else to keep in mind.

My Kind of Cloudy Day

I admit it, I'm mesmerized by clouds! There's very little breeze today, so these are just hanging there....like a painting in the sky. I don't remember my grade-school science classes on weather, so I had to look them up...I *think* these are stratocumulus...one of the types of mid-level clouds. No matter what, I enjoy watching them. If they stick around all day, we might have a beautiful sunset tonight!  

September Sunrise

I'm rarely ready to crawl out of bed on an early morning, but getting to see a sunrise like this one makes me glad I did!  

Deceptive Clouds

These clouds are what I awoke to this morning -- which was a surprise, because there really wasn't any rain in the forecast. It turns out the meteorologists knew what they were talking about this time -- during the next hour the clouds broke apart, and drifted away, leaving us with a beautiful sunshiny day. It never did rain, regardless of how threatening it looked at 6:30 a.m.!   

August Sunrise

One of the (few) benefits to our school-year starting again is that I'm getting to enjoy the colors in the morning sky more often. During the summer break, I tended to sleep about 30 minutes later than I do now, and as a result, I missed the sky "waking up" for the day.

Now I find myself checking the eastern sky each morning to see what it holds in store. :-)   

Sunset After the Storm

After weeks without measurable rain, we had a quick, fast-moving storm move through this afternoon. The sun set behind the trees just as the clouds were breaking up.   

Layered Clouds

This is an odd version of a sunrise photo -- it's the western sky, but it's lit up because of the sunrise on the other side of the sky! I always like "cloud photos," and the way these clouds were stacked up really appealed to me!