Good morning

Sun rising through stratocumulus.

When icicles hang by the wall...

We could have some very cold weather over the next month or so. Keep warm, and maybe give a little to help those who are likely to be very cold, such as through No Second Night Out in London or other organisations for rough sleepers in your area.

Click on the image to view full size.

Changeable skies

Panorama to the east at about 4.20pm.

Stratocumulus above cumulus clouds, all mixed up together.

Big cumulus clouds lit from behind with thin streaks of stratocumulus above.

An altocumulus cumulogenitus that developed to the east, late in the day. The top of the cloud flattened out due to temperature inversion in the upper atmosphere. Though not as big or powerful as a a cumulonimbus cloud, it's still pretty big. I watched a plane fly underneath it.

Coastal clouds

Some big fat cumulus clouds to the east this afternoon.

Almost dark

Cumulus, frayed at the edges, in an evening sky.

Cloud metamorphosis

Over the course of an hour or so, this cloud was transformed, though it stayed in more or less the same place, from a streak to what looked like a sheet of snow in the sky, then cloudlets that gradually dispersed.

If you click on the first image, you'll see it enlarged and can go through the sequence.

Faint and far away

Cirrocumulus stratiformis, very high and formed of ice crystals and super-cooled water droplets, forming a ripple pattern. The smudgy larger clouds on the right are lower altocumulus.

Cold clouds on a hot day

Altocumulus (lower left) and cirrocumulus (all the rest) on another hot day, 31° in the shade. Poor grocery delivery driver said it was 33° in his cab - no air conditioning.

Can't get my head around the fact that it's so hot down here, and heat rises, yet those cirrocumulus clouds will be at least 20,000 feet up, formed from ice crystals or super-cooled water.

Boring blue sky

No clouds today - not one! I've included the sun and some vegetation in this photo, or it would be just a blue square.

The Cloud Appreciation Society's manifesto includes the words,
We pledge to fight ‘blue-sky thinking’ wherever we find it. Life would be dull if we had to look up at cloudless monotony day after day.

I'm hoping for some clouds tomorrow, even if only a few little ones. And some rain. It hasn't rained for days. The garden is parched.

Golden sunset

After a cooler day and an even cooler evening.

Wisps

A hot day with mostly clear skies, apart from a few cumulus humilis and even fewer wisps of cumulus fractus, like these, that evaporate within minutes.

Blended colours

Someone took an airbrush to the sky over the horizon at moonrise.

Cloudy ripples

Another hot day. At about 12:30 these neat cirrocumulus stratiformis were overhead, high in the atmosphere (between 5 to 14 km or 16,000 to 45,00 ft) where upward air currents meet high cirrostratus clouds formed of ice crystals, some of which turn into supercooled water droplets. Not long afterwards they'd disappeared, or almost disappeared; just a ghostly trace of a few in small transparent patches in an otherwise blue sky.

Hot and bright

A hot day, even at about 18:45, when these were taken. Streaks of cirrus show that there were high winds at high altitude, while clumps of cumulus mediocris and wisps of cumulus fractus moved more slowly.

Cool sunset

Looking south-east, reflected light on altocumulus bobbles, like fluff.

Sunset streaks at different levels - stratocumulus, altocumulus, cirrus and contrails.

A little later - blue, grey, and apricot.

Frill

The day started with bright sunshine...

Later...

Big beautiful cumulus clouds at around tea-time today, looking south-east, towards the coast.

Forecast: cloudy with sunny intervals later

Looking south-west at lunchtime, with heaps of cumulus in the distance and altocumulus overhead.

Cloud fold

Some cumulus rolled over as the sun was setting, reflecting the pastel colours.

Bright and beautiful

Click on the image to enlarge it

If you ever bother to look at this blog you'll have noticed that it's been neglected for months. This is mainly because I've hardly been outside for months. I intend to get out more. On the few occasions that I have been out recently, I've missed a couple of photo-opportunities. Sitting in my garden the other day, in conversation with a neighbour over tea, I spotted some cirrocumulus lacunosus overhead. I could have excused myself and rushed in to get my camera, but as my guest was in the middle of telling me something quite personal, it seemed rude to interrupt her, so I didn't. By the time she'd finished her story, the cloud had dispersed. Then, while being driven home by taxi along a busy main road the other day, I spotted some wonderful cumulus heaps. I tried to capture them with my phone but it was impossible, traveling at speed and with road signs and other features in the way, so you'll just have to take my word for it that they were magnificent!

Yesterday I went to the far side of the village to capture some of the abundant cumulus clouds that filled the sky. I tried using my small Fujifilm pocket camera's panorama feature but it was almost impossible to see the instructions onscreen in bright sunlight, especially as my sight's not so hot these days, so the result was due to luck, not judgement. The other shots were more straightforward, with no joins.