Colourful cloud

Phew! Holidays at last. It's six weeks since I last blogged. The last few weeks have been busy but now we're down at our farm near Heywood for a couple of weeks. Lots of family will be coming and going and its going to be a busy but in a different way and there will still be lots of time to get out into the bush.

As we left Geelong this afternoon I saw this cloud over Highton. The rainbow colours only lasted a few minutes and then the colour was gone. It was very warm and sunny, no showers, and the photo was taken almost looking into the sun. I seem to remember reading in my cloud book that this phenomenon has a name but that book's at home and I only have limited internet access here. [Update: My friend Marilyn tells me it's an iridescent cloud http://www.atoptics.co.uk/droplets/irid1.htm ]

Clouds

Before checking in to our accommodation at Charters Towers we drove to the highest spot in town so that we could see the sunset properly. I'd anticipated a good one because the clouds were spectacular. And we weren't disappointed.

The next day we drove north to Undara and I could hardly see the landscape for the show that was developing in the huge sky for all of the six hours we travelled. I'm lost for words to describe how beautiful the clouds were. [Where was Duncan when I needed him?]

Approaching storm

This one's for Adam. He knows why.

Clouds

A lot lot cooler today but I can smell and see smoke. We Aussies are on edge whenever we smell smoke! I've been photographing clouds. Here are some I've seen over the last few weeks.

The mother of all clouds

There were storms all around us this afternoon but nothing actually happened here apart from a few rumbles of thunder and about ten large drops of rain. But the clouds looked dramatic, and I was able to photograph this as I drove out to book club. (OK, I stopped the car to take the photo.) It's a mamma cloud I believe, breast-like formations (or udders of cloud as Pretor-Pinney describes them in his book The Cloudspotter's Guide) that can hang beneath a Cumulonimbus, and indicate high instability around the top of the cloud.
PS I pinched my heading from Pretor-Pinney as well.

Just bluffing

It seemed that I'd chosen the wrong time to go out to the Bannockburn Cemetery (see previous post), but this threatening cloud came and went without leaving a drop of rain. I haven't absorbed enough information from my new cloud book yet to be able to identify it. (Did you know that clouds have scientific names like plants and animals? It could be a Cumulus congestus, for example.) It was good to see the Richard's Pipit on the gravel road, the White-necked Heron on the dam bank, and hear the Stubble Quails calling from the wheat crop. It's summer.

Cloudspotting

My friend Marilyn suggested I read The Cloudspotter's Guide by Gavin Pretor-Pinney. I resisted for a while because since she read it earlier this year she's become besotted by clouds and has neglected her older passions for birds, butterflies, orchids, rocks, stars and bullants (to mention a few). As I, too, tend to unexpectedly head off in new directions I thought I could do without having to read up on yet another subject in the natural world.

But then a few weeks ago I posted a blog about a beautiful cloud I had seen, and Marilyn sent me several photos of clouds she was excited about, and when I was in the bookshop the other day looking for Christmas presents I bought the book on the spur of the moment. I'm glad I did.

Gavin Pretor-Pinney runs a webpage for cloudspotters and his book about clouds is amusing and informative. It has become a Sunday Times bestseller. One reviewer wrote: 'It is possibly the most entertaining textbook ever written.'

Here are several examples of Gavin's style.

Compared with the frenetic and capricious convection clouds, the Stratus is a ponderous individual. It rarely bothers to shed much of its moisture – never managing more than a light drizzle or gentle snow. It takes its time arriving, and generally outstays its welcome when it does. This is not a cloud known for its spontaneity – it isn't the type to cause a commotion at picnics with a sudden downpour the moment the sandwiches are out of their foil. When there is a thick layer of Stratus above, people are just more likely to forget the picnic and opt for the cinema instead.

and

…the Nimbostratus is quite simply a thick, wet blanket, whose base is ragged and indistinct on account of its continually falling precipitation. It might be able to beat most of the other types in a fight, but it wouldn't get far in a cloud beauty contest.

Marilyn also gave me a software program that stitches photos together to make a panorama. She said that sometimes the full scale of a cloud can't be encompassed in one photo so several have to be taken and combined. Oh dear. I'm already torn between flowers and insects at eye level, and birds above my head. Now I have to look to the sky as well. And spend even more time on my computer playing around with images. There goes the ironing. The floors went long ago.

And I'll have to find time to check out the Cloud Appreciation Society's webpage

www.cloudappreciationsociety.org

Clouds

Yesterday the sky was clear on a warm day, then these clouds came up quickly and filled half the sky, and then they were gone. It looked stunning. I know nothing about clouds but I suppose there is a catagory for this type.