Looking up again..you should try it

Hello All,

Just popping on as I found an interesting series of photos in between the subject I finished on last time and that I was going start on next time…my trip to Germany a while back. Now, I’ll say in the very early stages, this may or may not interest you so I won’t take offence if I don’t get any feedback! However, I find this kind of thing very interesting and, in a way, beautiful when it comes to the shapes in the clouds. If it is one thing I’d encourage you all to do, it is to look up once in a while, clouds aren’t all flat and grey.

One afternoon, just wandering around the house minding my own business I expect, the day got a little heavy cloud-wise and the first clue that something was swirling around appeared…

Now, without being able to point in directions and add annotations (I haven’t worked that out yet) you can see that a shelf of cloud is developing and is moving in from the upper part of the sky from right to left. In the distance, you can see the yellow colour displayed when there is rain in the air too and even a bit of virga. The thing is, when you looked to the left, the same was happening….

In this image, you can see in the upper part and the lower part there is some compact and elongated mammatus and some distinct curves in the cloud where more is developing. A sure sign that rain is coming! However, seeing one big lump is coming one way and one the other, this is where is got interesting as they met in the middle and created this kind of melee of tumbling clouds at low-level…

This continued on for quite a while and things got very dark and distinct lines of where the air is pulled in and pushed out became apparent in the form of asperatus-like curves and shapes…

Sadly, all things come to an end and the lovely show came to messy finish where everything was jumbled up all over. I was hoping for a rain shower, a clap of thunder or maybe I read things entirely wrong!

Mind you, not being one to give up easily when it comes to clouds (I often wonder what the residents of the houses backing on to the fields where I take my sunset pictures think of me) I saw that following this was a very distinctly shaped cloud which I have looked around for on the webby net. It seems that it ticks all the boxes for part of a flanking line for a storm cloud, so I think I was right! It was a storm close by but not over us..

In the words or Mr Wikipedia “a flanking line is an area of small clouds that mark an area of widespread updrafts in front of strong thunderstorms. These flanking lines generally occur in the vicinity of supercells or large multicell thunderstorms. The bases of the clouds making the flanking line are merged (like in the picture). The forefront area usually has no rain” (this accounts for the fact there was no rain the whole time.

“These feeder clouds will merge with the main cumulonimbus and will regenerate the storm.” That I can’t vouch for but “the feeder clouds are located at the west or southwest of the main cloud” I can vouch for as the large town that pretty much always has these big rain storms is located in that direction.

Just call me John Kettley.

Well, this concludes an overly scientific and speculative diagnosis of weather in my area of Wales. Next time, we embark upon a road trip to Germany! Thanks for dropping by and sticking with me in this post.

Further Winter wetness (Part 2)…plus competition news!

News? Indeed!

For those who don’t know…that’s pretty much all of you bar my girlfriend and my Dad, I got an email yesterday informing me that I have, once again, managed to get two pictures included on the Weathernet calendar. So, that’s an image (or two) for 2013, 2014, 2015 and now 2016. Once again, the email arrives just in time as I’m away on hols as of Tuesday so I can send the originals for them this evening.

Pretty good huh? As I’m finishing off the Winter wetness blog, I shan’t post the images on here just yet to break the theme, I shall do it some other time. So, what’s next? My own business?! I doubt it, but it’s nice to think that the images are enjoyed elsewhere. I’ve not been out too much of late, as the last time I went for a walk I managed to overstretch my knee ligaments (again…this is an old injury) so I have been limping around like an old carthorse. Once I have had a proper rest, I shall be on the bike to build that joint back up, I can assure you!

Anyway, on to this load of images from last year of the flooding a bad weather we had in the area…I’ve managed to move away from flooding and include some clouds in this post…love my clouds. Firstly, does anyone remember the BBC news story about the bus being washed off the road in Newgale? If not, you can read about it here to refresh your memory. Below is a set of images from the aftermath….sans bus;

Who would think that down there is a main road and a large campsite…?

Still, no bus, but it’s pretty dramatic isn’t it? You can see the power of the wind in the foreground by the amount of rubbish strewn over the undergrowth. Usually, this kind of stuff never sees landfall. In the distance you can see the local pub that had been flooded…again! Quite how they get insurance I will never know……or maybe they don’t.

I then took an image down the road (this is one of the main roads to St Davids, the smallest city in the UK) which shows the road disappearing under the gravel bank and water. To the right is, believe or not, a camping ground. Somehow, this always manages to dry out in time for the holidays. Quite amazing. It’s either that or a very efficient drainage system!

Er…can I borrow your tractor? I need to get along there…

Now, a closer image showing what used to be the road and the camping ground with people walking where cars would usually be passing, probably so they could pop some inane comment on their Faceboobs status like “walking in the middle of the road, lol” or something similar. If you hadn’t gathered, I’m not a fan of that stuff!

A pebble bank that used to be a road!

Moving on, quite literally, as this following image was after a drive away from Newgale, Dad and I moved over to Broadhaven, a little further along the coast. Normally the small road to the left in the first picture would lead there but, obviously, that was now impassable for rocks and water. That is not quite the world that a Ford Focus should inhabit!

As we approached, I remember squeaking at Dad to stop as I spotted one of the best formations of mammatus clouds I have seen since we have lived here…

A very impressive outbreak of mammatus over Broadhaven

The defences at Broadhaven (well, a wall) had meant that the front of the village wasn’t affected as badly as Newgale but there was a good few pounds of sand and gravel around, I can tell you! The local council was actually in the process of cleaning it up as we arrived, so I took another image of that mammatus as it slid inland..

Mmmmore mmmmammatus…very nice

Finally, a few days later, the sun and a passing squall came together in a lovely shot as I was out having a walk. A famous photographer (can’t recall who) once said that good pictures are all about fortuitous timing and this pictures demonstrates this quite well. After all, if the sun wasn’t there, would you even have the contrast and colour you have here? I doubt it.

A winter squall and a sunset conspired to make a lovely snap

There we go, a winters flooding in a dozen pictures or so. A whistle-stop tour you could say. I am sure that there will be more to come and I will be ready to take pictures! Who knows, there could be bigger calendar entries in the future…

Thanks again for dropping in and continued support, much appreciated and like the lady who emailed me from Germany a while back saying she liked a picture I had taken, if you want an image, feel free to ask. I can only say “no”…but I probably won’t, because I’m a thoroughly nice bloke. Go on, try me.

See you soon!

If you like clouds, you’ll love this post!

Morning All,

Surprisingly, it’s rather damp here at the moment; unfortunately you can’t convey sarcasm too well in text, but that was a sarcastic comment. We have had a few lovely days of late with broken sunshine and temperatures rising to the point you don’t need three layer coats but it all seems to have gone downhill.

Mind you, I was lucky enough to be in Aberystwyth working the beginning of this week when there was a very impressive storm off the coast. The hotel I stayed in was right on the beach near enough so it was very different listening to crashing waves when I usually hear nothing, living on a hill inland! I popped out a number of time to get a few videos so if, and this is a big if, I can work out how to get the right ones off my phone and onto YouTube (yes, I have a YouTube channel too!) I may post the odd one. I shall post a message here if successful!

Anyway, onto the pictures. I took these at the end of November last year; basically it’s the birth of what turned out to be a massive rainstorm over Haverfordwest. I can’t remember why, but I was at home not work that morning and was, lucky me, able to get these beautiful pictures (although I had to remove a little digital noise in Photoshop as per my last post, sorry).

Incoming!

After, the first few pictures, things being to develop into a more visually stunning cloud with some lovely contrasting blue sky behind it.

A wider view…

I think this set of pictures is some of the best timing I have had of late with my weather pictures. Shame it didn’t come along in time for the WeatherNet photo competition!

Getting a bit lumpy there…

Down in the left bottom corner of the image above, you can see some brave birds playing chicken across the front of the incoming precipitation. Mind you, they’d be getting quite a view, I imagine…

More lumpiness (mammatus possibly) and the hills behind for context

If I had been in a plane, I would have been giving this are a pretty wide berth!

The upper part seems to be growing a bit taller now…or it could just be closer!

The storm continues to grow and get more striking by the minute almost….

Some very striking colours in this image

The image above is my all time favourite out of the 20 or so I took, for the mix of colour and structure in the clouds. As I said in one of the captions, I’m fairly sure it contains mammatus which you can read about by going here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mammatus_cloud)

Some grey cloud coming in underneath now and the storm is upon us!

After I took the final image above, a lower layer of clouds was getting in the mix and things started to get a little too big to get in the viewfinder, plus there was the odd spit and spot of rain in the air, so I retired indoors plus I had to go into town to get to work. Sigh.

Well, there you have it, the best storm clouds I’ve seen for a long time and I hope that you like them too but apologies for the amount of them, I just though they were so pretty and looked so powerful, they all need posting! Next time, I will look to post my most recent waterfall walk or something, which has some nice lapse in it, so it should look cool.

Thanks again for tuning in and keep this frequency clear for storm videos on YouTube, I shall let you know here first!