Tag Archives: storm

Photographs: Mono Lake Basin, Photographs: Nature

Evening Storm Clouds, Mountains

August 3, 2017 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Evening thunderstorm clouds begin to break up above high desert mountains east of the Sierra Nevada at sunset

The Sierra Nevada, being more out of the path of the seasonal monsoonal flows that beset the Southwest, often experiences clear weather — sometimes too clear! Most photographers prefer a more interesting sky, and we can actually be heard complaining about too much nice weather at times. But periodically the atmospheric flows shift northward and westward a bit, and we do see thunderstorm weather in the Sierra. Most of us love this, and we look forward to “interesting skies” when it happens. The clouds often build up over the crest and they can then spread east or sometimes west as the day wears on. Mostly the clouds will clear out late in the day, but sometimes when they drift to the east of the range the electrical show may continue into the evening.

I experienced some of this “interesting weather” on my recent visit to the Sierra around the northeastern portion of Yosemite. It actually turned out to be more interesting than expected, when a forecast of clearing on day two of my trip morphed into a forecast to daily thunderstorm chances. On one afternoon I took a hike up an east side canyon, and on my return I was surprised to find that there was rain falling near the mouth of the canyon. Before long in rained and hailed on me, and these appeared to be the kinds of clouds that might stick around into the evening. I decided to forego dinner, instead finding a high overlook and photographing the cloud show right on through sunset and into the post-sunset blue hour.

All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others as indicated. Any use requires advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Mono Lake Basin, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Evening Rain, Reflection

July 29, 2017 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

The reflection of an evening thunderhead on the surface of Mono Lake

During the past few days I was once again in the Sierra, camping just outside Yosemite’s Tioga Pass entrance and photographing in the surrounding areas. There is a lot to write about: the tremendous amount of snow still in the high country, the remarkable amounts of water everywhere, how odd it is to see all park campgrounds along Tioga Pass road still closed, the challenges of hiking in these conditions. I’ll save most of the details about those things for another post for now, except as they may relate to this photograph. After photographing elsewhere very early in the morning and then killing time in camp until about noon, I decided to hike into an east side canyon. It was a beautiful hike, though because I was alone and had not brought trekking poles, I eventually turned around soon than I had planned rather than risk solo crossings of high-water creeks. Coming back down from the hike I was surprised to see a thunderstorm brewing over the lower end of the canyon, and I quickly found a high overlook from which to watch the show. Before long the show became a bit too exciting! Heavy hail and rain developed — too much so for photography — and I high-tailed it down to Lee Vining.

As often happens, the convective action was mostly developing to the east of the Sierra crest, so I found a (not very secret!) location from which I could watch the evening light develop above Mono Lake. Multiple thunderstorms continued to develop right through the sunset, dropping rain on the high desert mountains and reflecting the evening light onto the surface of the lake.

All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others as indicated. Any use requires advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Clearing Sierra Nevada Sunset Clouds

July 9, 2017 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Last sunset light on clearing storm clouds above the Sierra Nevada, photographed from a commercial airline flight

We spent the past week in New York City, visiting family and hanging out and doing some photography. (More urban/street photography from the visit will be coming soon.) Our final day there started out with driving rain, but cleared it up in time for us to make our way to the Newark airport for our flight back to California. There were rumors that the storm front passing over the east coast might interfere with our flight, but we were airborne only a few minutes later than scheduled, though the pilot came on the address system to let us know that they had been given a much more southerly route to follow, due to storms further north, and that this might delay our expected 8:45 PM arrival by about 15 minutes or so.

Most people might regard that as a minor inconvenience, but I quickly calculated that this would probably put us right above the Sierra Nevada almost exactly at sunset, possibly providing some interesting opportunities for aerial landscape photography. An hour or so before landing the pilot again came on the system to announce that storms above the Sierra might call create some turbulence. Again, I thought that sounded fine as long as that meant great clouds. There must have been monsoon conditions, as there were already thick clouds well east of the range, and before long I could see a wall of very high storm clouds stretching along the length of the Sierra ahead of us. In fact, the clouds were high enough that they blocked the sun, and I began to doubt that anything photographically interesting would occur. Apparently the crew was looking for an opening through the clouds, since they soon turned a bit to the left/south, and I could see an opening ahead with colorful backlit clouds. As we passed to the south of the cloud wall — and I never could figure out exactly where we were above the range — the last light of the setting sun passed almost horizontally over these thinning clouds, producing brilliant colors and allowing a brief view of snow on the mountains below.

Photographs: Death Valley, Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Nature

Clearing Dust Storm, Evening

June 1, 2017 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Translucent atmosphere as the sky clears in the wake of a Death Valley dust storm

This was the tail end of a massive dust storm that was with us in one form or another for an entire day. Very early in the morning we had seen the precursor conditions when we visited a high ridge in the Panamint range before dawn. At that time there was a kind of haze in the atmosphere that I had come to associate with incipient dust storm conditions. By midday the dust was easily seen rising out of the great valleys on either side of the mountains, and before long tendrils of dust were snaking through the air above our position. Returning to Death Vally itself we encountered a wild scene — thick dust everywhere and extremely high winds. We gave up and shut ourselves indoors for a few hours, and then not long before sunset the wind abated a bit, and I ventured outside.

The dust storm was still raging across the valley, but in our location the winds had dropped considerably. But in the interim a weather system had moved overhead, and now it was raining into the dust storm — something I had not encountered here before. I made my way to an elevated location that was above much of the worst of the dust and from which I had wide views across the lower end of the Valley. From there I could see the Cottonwood Mountains to the west, and as the air cleared slightly the light made its way under the clouds and back-lit the dust still floating in the translucent atmosphere.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: storm

Evening Storm Clouds, Mountains

Evening Rain, Reflection

Clearing Sierra Nevada Sunset Clouds

Clearing Dust Storm, Evening

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