As a photographer, you like to develop a niche. My niche, of course, if you follow this site, is gray matter overhead, an amorphous, gray balls. Now yesterday was a great day for adding something to my collection since a Cumulus base, one that was clearly headed for better things than just being a Cumlus cloud, developed almost straight overhead, giving me a great chance for another “signature shot.” See below. I don’t know of any other photographer that specializes in this kind of shot; kind of sad, really.
Once again, you’ll have to click on the image to get a proper size, and hold your monitor over your head. People seem to enjoy doing this. Make sure your plugs and connections to the monitor are long enough to do this maneuver. Sometimes I forget to tell people this, and then they get mad when an external hard drive falls on the floor when performing this maneuver and it won’t work anymore. Sorry.
Of course, I monitored this base and kept shooting ( you never know which one will be the best) it, and then, there came the strands of the first drops out the bottom, that fabulous moment so few photographers catch because it is VERY subtle. Next photo, if you can detect it!
OK, this is probably too hard for you to see much in the second shot, though I can see something.
How about a bit later, when its obvious?
Pretty cool, huh?
I was really hoping for those giant drops, but the initial shaft was just a hair to the east, and so while it rained HARD, the main load was dumped toward Sutherland Wash to the east. But, we did get 0.16 inches here. See next photos
What were seeing in this emergence of a fall streak is the overhead transition from a Cumulus congestus to a Cumulonimbus calvus to Cb capillatus. Eventually only the “hair”, that is, the fibrous ice cloud is left up there. The whole bottom two thirds of the cloud has rained out. Since there were so many Cumulus clouds that went through this transition yesterday, we were left with a huge amount of what would be called, probably should stretch your tongue before trying to say this so you don’t injure it, “Altostratus cumulonimbogenitus.” Here’s the great sunset shot showing mostly that mass of ice cloud up there (underlit by the ray of sun). Enjoy once again!
