Altocumulus of the morning, hold the ice

Those morning Altocumulus clouds (no ice) were pretty yesterday!  Took too many shots, as usual.  Here are a couple:

5:56 AM, looking SSW.
5:56 AM, looking SSW.
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7:36 AM. A little later.

 

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5:56 AM. A little earlier.  Puffed up enough over here to designate them as floccus and castellanus.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The temperature at the top of these clouds, located at about 14,000 feet above sea level: 2 C, 35 F.

2:48 PM, near closing time at the Marana Landfill Dump looking east.
2:48 PM. A mid-afternoon mammoth Cumulonimbus capillatus incus arises in the distance toward the Rincon Mountains as  closing time at the Marana Landfill Dump nears.  Dumps, as you likely know, are one of the great research sites in America, as they are to anthropologists sudying the ancients.  You can’t imagine how excited anthros get when find a previously undiscovered dump used by ancient peoples.  Its the same today by those who refer to themselves as “trashologists.”  Sez a lot about the society of the time, and what they did.  Think of how important to us the plastic bag will seem to our society by future anthros and trashologists!  Let’s face it, we LOVE the plastic bag!  I noticed quite a few here, too, kind of blowing around all over.
Gritty-not-pretty photo:  $2,500.  (Cost $10 to get in and take this photo, so passing along some of the cost to consumers.)  Photographer’s note:  This may be one of the most important photos in the GNP collection.

By Art Rangno

Retiree from a group specializing in airborne measurements of clouds and aerosols at the University of Washington (Cloud and Aerosol Research Group). The projects in which I participated were in many countries; from the Arctic to Brazil, from the Marshall Islands to South Africa.