Every sky is different and presents different challenges. The meteorology may be similar but is never the same from day to day. This is a cold front and I was looking southwest in its wake a couple of hours after it had passed through. The layers of higher altocumulus clouds were thinning. The northwestern edges of the clouds were lines shaped by deformation processes. The lower streets of turbulent stratocumulus clouds were parallel to the boundary layer winds in the unstable and cooler air mass. These lines are barely recognizable from the vantage point of the ground but are obvious from the bird's eye view of the satellite. I really did paint what I saw. Although I am making the meteorology up, it is accurate science. Really... The patterns are not that complex and they repeat themselves - a lot - everyday. If you learn the patterns once, you will have them a lifetime. I have sketched in only a few of the deformation zones... there are always more - progressively smaller and less important.
These clouds are clearly black- lit and that tells you were the sun was and thus which direction I was looking. Isn't science the same as art? Both can and should be beautiful.
1 comment:
Of course you can also determine the average winds by taking the time to watch for the direction that the cloud masses are moving. The cloud shapes themselves reveal the deviations of the real wind from the averge wind.
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