September30th - Enchanted Cloud Forest

This combination of stratocumulus tree trunks and cirrus leaves make for an interesting forest of clouds!

September29th - Gorgs kissing and Heaven's light

Watching as these two cumulus clouds converged upon each other I couldn't help seeing two Gorgs kissing.

Heaven's light pours up from the valley created by these beautiful cumulus clouds against a brilliant blue sky.

September 28th - Sand Hill Crane Cirrus Cloudscape

We have many Sand Hill Cranes near our house, and they make a horrible noise as their call. Not the kind of alarm clock you really need! Sometimes I think I see them everywhere, but these Cirrus clouds kind of freaked me out!

September27th -Pink Tornado

This was such an amazing sight I pulled the car off the road onto the grass at a major intersection to get this shot! It looked like a pink tornado!

September26th -upside-down rain or maybe a hairbrush...

This unusual cloud formation looked like a crown or a hairbrush. I had a very hard time finding any online info about it. It looks like wind might have "whipped up" these strands of cloud which appear like upside-down rain.

September25th -Delta Rocket Launch Contrail with Eagle

This morning at 8:20 a Delta Rocket launched from Canaveral into a perfect blue sky.

It's interesting to me that the rocket appears to be turning to go parallel to the earth, when in fact the rocket is going straight up, and it is the earth that is turning.

I love to watch the rocket itself get smaller and smaller. Hard to believe it can make such a distinct contrail.

And soon after the launch I always wait to see what design the forces of the atmosphere will create from the contrail. The design is highlighted by the sun peeking out from behind a palm tree trunk.

This was a bonus shot! As I turned to walk back down the street to my house, a gorgeous bald eagle flew directly over me. What a thrill!

September 24th - Cirruspider in a web

These cirrus clouds looked like a giant spider in it's web. I kept waiting for a plane to fly by and get stuck.

September 23rd - Near Twilight

This cumulonimbus cloud, in the near-twilight sky was a magical background to the reflecting lights on the lake shore.

September 22nd - Cactus Cloud and Giant Heads

A sky full of gathering thunderheads made for some very active cumulonimbus scenery today!

This looks like a giant cactus growing up through the middle of a window of cloud.

These giant heads - from left to right: a blurry flying monkey, 3 cherubs, a Disney Chip monk, and Lyle Lovett!

September 21st - Bottom of the Cumulonimbus

This storm rolled in really quickly so I knew it was the bottom of a cumulonimbus cloud. It was totally black, but I was lucky enough for the clouds to break a bit and show a bit of what was above the floor.

September 20 - propeller of light

Sometimes there is this amazing effect when the sunset is partially blocked by a cloud on the horizon. The clouds create shadows across the sky, and the sunlit clouds look like a giant airplane propeller.

This is the view of the actual sunset.

This is the sky in the opposite direction as the sunset-lit stripes move across the sky to the horizon.

This is a closer view of part of the illuminated striations. the light seems to spill out of the cloud.

September 19th - Blue Sky!

Sometimes the sky is just perfectly blue! And it's such a pretty combination with the fucia of the blossoming crepe myrtle.

September 18th - cumulonimbus incus

This cumulonimbus incus cloud, dramatically lit by the setting sun looks as though it is lit from the inside somehow.


A cumulonimbus incus (Latin incus, "anvil") is a cumulonimbus cloud which has reached the level of stratospheric stability and has formed the characteristic flat, anvil-top shape. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cumulonimbus_incus)

September 17th - "Mare's Tail" Cirrus Clouds

Cirrus clouds generally refer to atmospheric clouds that are characterized by thin, wisplike strands. Sometimes they are called "mare's tail".

This sky is reminiscent of downy white feathers arranged in a fan or a headdress.

September 16th - Cumulus Clouds at sunset

The bottom of these cumulus clouds form a beautiful reflective surface for the light of sunset.

It kind of looks like there's a giant pink eye looking down from heaven.

September 14th - Cirrostratus Cloud Dance

Cirrostratus clouds in the background of this skyscape seem to intertwine in a swirling dance with the lower level clouds. The light near sunset gives a beautiful pink cast to the scene.

September 14th - Perfectly Pink

Even though the cloud formations become familiar in the Summer afternoons, the colors can be just wonderful, and create a very different mood.

These shades of grey and pink are one of my favorite color combinations!

September 13th - Sea Foam, Surfers, and Seasick

These photos are of a variety of cirrocumulous clouds. Cirrocumuli are high-level clouds appearing as a formation of small masses of white or pale blue, fleecy clouds in a globular, wavelike, rippled pattern, usually in regularly arranged groupings. Cirrocumulus are composed of highly supercooled water droplets, ice crystals, or a mixture of both. I got this info from http://www.weatheronline.co.uk/reports/wxfacts/Cirrocumulus.htm - a good source! So that's the weather lecture for today - now just enjoy the photos...

Instead of looking up, I see aerial views today. This formation of Cirrocumulus undulatus looks amazingly like the sea foam left on the beach after a wave recedes.


Looking down, I see waves breaking at a distance from the shore (Cirrocumulus lacunosus), but no matter how hard I squint I still can only imagine the surfers riding them.


These white caps (Cirrocumulus floccus) would make for a bumpy ride back to shore!

September 12th - Getting up a little early pays off sometimes!

This moring was one of those times it paid to get up and out of the house a little early. With an 80% chance of rain today I figured it was a good idea, and it worked out really well!

The sun peeked out of the lower cloud layer for a minute before rising behind another thick band of clouds.

After the sun rose above the thick cloud band, it illuminated the higher cloud formations in a very interesting way. The sun seemed to sink into a pillow of cloud.

The perfect setup for a beautiful sunrise reflection in the glassy smooth pond. The palm trees added just the right finishing touch.

September 11th - Jack and the Beanstalk, The Pillsbury doughboy, and giant ropes

Another day of bright blue sky and white clouds - and yet the variety of each area of sky continues to amaze me.

I wanted to climb up this spiraling cloud "beanstalk" to see if there was a giant at the top!

I felt like the Pillsbury doughboy was hovering over my backyard!

These Altostratus clouds floated in front of the cumulus clouds on the horizon. It was like giant ropes were stretched across the sky.

September 10th - Big Foot, Asteroids and Boomerangs

This storm skyscape seemed to include every type of cloud imaginable.

The shelf cloud coming through at the front of the storm looked like a big foot crashing down!

You can almost imagine an asteroid hitting the earth spewing debris toward us.

Alto cumulus clouds resemble a giant boomerang flying across the sky.

September 9th - Meteors, Jellyfish and Dragons

Today is wispy day! These high cirrus clouds were just fun - so light and carefree...

A meteor spinning through space or maybe a jellyfish?

A dragon with wings spread flying through the sky...

I don't know what this looks like - I just really liked it. Any ideas?

September 8th - A Monster's Coming!

Today I spent a few hours at Lake Eola in Downtown Orlando taking photos of the skyline, swans and scenery. I have posted many of there to my flickr (click on the link to the right and down a ways). I hope you'll take a peek. In the mean time I only have one photo to post on this blog below.

This wonderful cumulonimbus cloud formation was like a monster coming over the horizon to eat East Orlando!

September 7th - Reflection, Cotton Candy, Flying Saucers and Mushrooms

Every way I turned this afternoon there was a different skyscape - so many different kinds of clouds in different combinations were fuel for my imagination.

A cumulus mushroom cap rises out of stratus clouds like from a bug's eye view

Three distinct levels of clouds look like a giant flying saucer hovering over mountains with clouds above.

These beautiful, mid - level clouds seem to be like a cloud reflected in a pool of water, or spun like cotton candy.

September 6th - Loch Ness, Saturn, and Bali Hai

Tonight the colors were subtle and soothing - definitely dreamy.

The Loch Ness Monster raises his head out of a sky ocean!

This cloud formation seems to have rings like Saturn...

I'm thinking this could be Bali Hai

September 5th - Gothic beyond belief!

These skyscapes are almost beyond belief! The color of the sky over the course of this sunset went from a silvery grey to almost copper to pink, and included so many different cloud formations.

The halo effect over this cumulus cloud looks like a china man's hat!

These two cloud formations are almost an inverse of each other - a bump with a swirl surrounding it, and a hole with a swirl above it.

This mammatus cloud formation, a beautiful dusky pink, is almost dispursed. If you look closely you can see the characteristic bumps of this formation on the lower surfce. The white glow under the formation gives a very surrealistic effect.

September 4th - Diamonds and Waves

The Sky seemed so big today as the clouds criss-crossed to form a diamond frame for this puff of cumulus cloud. There is an airplane in the photo that I almost wanted to remove, but I decided to leave it in as a size reference.

There is an airplane in the photo that I almost wanted to remove, but I decided to leave it in as a size reference.

These clouds looked so much like breakers at the beach - amazing!

These cirrus clouds almost seemed to be spilling out of the sun