"Dry Towers"

At 5:30 pm I headed out to stand on the front hill. I had expected to find fair weather cumulus but there were several lines of embedded towering cumulus to the east. None of these towering cumulus produced more than a few drops so they were basically dry, cries. As I was painting the wind shifted from the southwest to the northeast. The cooler and drier wind from the northeast provided the necessary shear to tilt the clouds that were still in the southwesterly flow. The clearing with the northeasterly gusts provided my favourite shade of sky which I felt compelled to put on the canvas. These same winds also threatened to blow over the easel which I had to tie to the white spruce on the front hill. It was a fun evening with a bit larger canvas.

A careful read of the clouds past the obvious cumulus and darker based towering cumulus, reveals a lot. The shape of the young (bright white) cumulus line in the upper foreground is an arc caused by the lift along the northeasterly outflow winds. The same shape can been seen in the other lines of convection although the amount of arc visible becomes less with distance. The darker grey lower stratocumulus along the distant horizon are older clouds within the stable layer under the leading edge of the outflow. The front lit clouds show the characteristic bright central areas and darker edges. In this case, the outflow was a weak cold front that made sleeping really excellent.