Weather Phenomena

I like dramatic weather, especially thunderstorms, and especially when the sky is really interesting, with mixes of light and dark and fast moving clouds. Probably comes from spending part of my childhood in Glenview, a northern suburb of Chicago. There's a reason Chicago is called the Windy City -- between the weather coming off the Great Lakes, down from the Canadian plains, and up or across from the US plains, things can get really interesting. We used to get these really great, tremendous thunder & lightning storms, and Mom & I would stand in front of our big picture window to watch them. We also got great snow storms, with lots of snow days off from school, which was wonderful as a kid.

There were two neat weather phenomena days this week. One week as I was heading up Rte 15 towards Catoctin Mountain, I could see a big fog bank ahead. What was neat this time was that it was a low, dense bank, very white, so that it looked like a cloud sitting on the ground, and so low that the mountain ridge showed above it. This made the mountain ridge look like it was floating in the air, or rising higher than it actually does. And the cloud bank was moving, you could see it just oozing down the valley, like some huge amoeba gobbling up the landscape.

Another day this week there was this cool juxtaposition of light and dark: Looking one direction, there was this huge mass of dark storm clouds coming my way; in the other direction, there was a pretty red & orange sunrise, with open blue sky above the far, low clouds, and a crescent moon hanging above the house in the pale blue morning sky. The wind was freshening, and it was crisp without being cold. A few snowflakes from the storm cloud were already drifting down. It was the type of blustery day I love, when I hate having to go to work, and would much rather have stayed home and run around outside with the dogs.