Wednesday, September 08, 2010

Reading Clouds

When I first moved to this island from my farm in Minnesota, one of the most irritating things to me was not being able to read the sky. Think about it. How often do you look up at the sky where you live and know exactly what is going on with the weather. You have learned to read your local sky, your local cloud weather predictors. Take that ability away and you will soon see how frustrating it is.

Over the years, I have gotten better about being able to judge the weather by looking at the sky. Not perfect yet, but better.

If I had seen clouds gathering like this in Minnesota, I would have thought for sure that a storm was gathering.














But here, mostly they are just interesting and pretty to look at. That is not say that they can't quickly develop into rain clouds and dump a deluge on you before you know what hit you.
Others, like these, are much easier to read.







A rainbow means very little. Just that the light is just right. It does not necessarily signal the end of a storm.





And then there are these:





In the old days, I would have been concerned about them. I have since learned that the darkness they contain is merely a shadow, not rain at all.
And then, again, some clouds are just plain pretty to look at.



I still feel mostly hopeless and helpless in predicting the weather. But I'm getting better. I'm sure Mother Nature still has a few tricks to show me!

7 comments:

Calypso said...

Great cloud photos amigo! When I get up in the morning (it is always still dark around here - if I see stars I know it won't rain before noon ;-) that is about the best I can do. Look to the west and hope for sun!

lisa said...

I love the looking at the clouds and the sky a lot. I have to agree that your clouds look like they are a lot harder to read than ours are.

Sue said...

#4 looks like a father kissing his child.

I read the sky too, and smell the air, to detect the weather. Great pictures!

CancunCanuck said...

Some friends and I were discussing this recently, the longer you are here, the better you can read the skies. Hubby and I make bets on how many minutes before the rain hits and how many before it passes. We're getting pretty good. :)

Anonymous said...

The whole area around Isla is one mass of micro-climates ..... you can look over at Cancun, and it looks like all hell is breaking loose .... it may be, but you'll never see it.

At the same time, clouds over Isla can look like the end of the world any second .... or no clouds at all can produce a downpour.

Part of the fun of the place. :)

Life's a Beach! said...

Great photos Wayne! Our clouds here aren't quite as hard to read. The sky can be dark purple with lightning and thunder and we still don't get rain! Clouds here just mean shade. I think it's rained once during the night this summer since I've been home. I think we live in the rain shadow of SanTan mountain or something. (Can you tell I'm missing the rain!)

KfromMichigan said...

Great photos! I love looking at the big puffy white clouds.