#2238 "Warm Sector Winds"

Strong southerly winds were ushering the stratocumulus across the lake. Turbulent mixing of the moist air mass resulted in uneven and ragged cloud bases and tops. There were several streets of stratocumulus within my view across the lake. I loved them all.

The cold front was on the western horizon but I could only tell that by looking at the radar. The horizon was quite bright but at the time I did not think to classify that as a change of air mass with the cold frontal surface. In any event I love remote sensing. One can see and understand the weather without getting exposed to the very real dangers that the elements can present. For example many people want to see a tornado before they die... but not just before they die. Remote sensing safely allows that.

The cold front went through shortly afterward. The rain became mixed with with snow and the howling winds lulled me to sleep. Life is good.

The light of clouds is elusive but worth the chase. One never knows how a canvas will evolve. I would have loved to do this en plein air but the rain showers and wind were enough to discourage me plus I was already tired from the days efforts of trail building.

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#2237 "Singleton Spring Bedtime Cloud Story"

The bedtime clouds told the story of another spring storm. The lower altostratus deformation zone was already evident on the western horizon.

The higher level cirrostratus deformation zone had already passed us by well to the east of Singleton. The atmosphere relative winds in the warm conveyor belt had created a couple of gravity wave trains in the cloud patterns as well. The patch work pattern in the sky made me think of the cover on the bed.

This is how the sky looked at 8:15 pm and although it was early I intended to rest my weary bones after cutting and clearing trails for the wildlife all day. We built shelters from wood palettes and branches for the smaller critters. These safe havens were spaced every hundred feet or so along the trails. The small creatures are the important base of the food chain but I do not tell them that. I was tired. The rain would mean no outside work or plein air painting for the next day. It would be a studio day.

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#2236 "Singleton Sunset Altocumulus"

I try to never miss a sunset. It was the clear yellow sky on the western horizon that caught my eye. A large patch of altocumulus was overhead Singleton as a system passed by to the north. We missed most of that weather. It had rained Sunday night but the amounts were not high. Another rain storm was on the way beyond that sunny horizon.

This is spring under the upper trough of a weakening jet stream. I love the weather... so much to paint. The satellite imagery revealed that weather story.

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#2235 "Orange Sunrise"

The morning light at 6:30 am does not last very long.

Another spring rain storm was on the way. The rising sun was penetrating under the overcast deck of altocumulus that was gently invading from the west with the warm conveyor belt of the next storm. A few small patches of blue sky poked through the thin overcast. The brilliant lighting would only last for a few more minutes. I used some orange pigments that I purchased from my mentor and friend Mario Airomi dating back to 1967. The paint was still perfect and I use the very rich pigment sparingly.

It was still sprinkling rain from the spring storm a day after the brilliant sunrise. I decided to take a break from chores and stroke this memory down before the orange inspiration faded into the grey matter.

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#2234 "Singleton Sunset Curls"

The sunset light can turn any cloud into a dazzling show of swirls of colour. The northwesterly winds behind the cold front were increasing with height which is characteristic of cold air advection. The cloud curls on the back edge of the cloud were turned upward by the stronger winds aloft which punched into the rear flank of the convective cloud. These curls were aided as well by the friction layer adjacent to the earth. The net effect was to create a cloud curl kind of like a pencil rolling on the surface of a table. The gusty wind had also stirred up waves in the eastern basin of Singleton Lake. The west basin was still thick with ice. There was a subtle bright line on the far shore which I included.

This kind of fluid flow occurs everywhere. This graphic is from a study of blood flow in an artery.
The arrows on the left side of the graphic are close to a blood flow relative representation while the arrows on the right is the blood flow relative to the inertial body.

The sun had already set below the horizon but was still enough to turn the clouds into glowing but dying embers of the day.

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#2233 "April Fools Stratocumulus"

The late afternoon sky of stratocumulus was very interesting on April Fools Day. The sea of stratocumulus were embedded in a northwesterly flow behind the lion of the March storm and ahead of the next system. The crepuscular rays crafted blocks of light and dark in the sides of those clouds. I found the patterns interesting. Some patches of blue sky poked through the holes in the deck of clouds. The ice still filled the western basin of Singleton Lake. There were some Langmuir Streaks in the open water of the east basin.

April Fools' Day probably dates back to 1582 when France switched from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar of Pope Gregory XIII as decided by the Council of Trent in 1563. Aloysus Lilius was the Italian scientist who invented the calendar but the Pope takes all of the credit and gives the invention his name. Lilius' ingenious method for syncing the calendar with the seasons is still off by 26 seconds even using Leap years that add a February 29th for years divisible by 4 or 100. By the year 4909 the Gregorian calendar will be a full day ahead of the solar year. Wait for that!

The Julian calendar was implemented by Julius Caesar in 46 B.C. However the Roman emperor's system that was surely not invented by Julius himself miscalculated the length of the solar year by 11 minutes. Over time the calendar must become unsynchronized with the seasons if only by 11 minutes with each passing year. This troubled Pope Gregory since it meant that Easter which was traditionally observed on March 21 fell further and further away from the spring equinox with each passing year.

Back in the late 1500's people were slow to get news of the switch to the Gregorian calendar. Many Europeans continued to celebrate the start of the new year like the Romans during the last week of March through to April 1. These out of date, uninformed and unfortunate souls became the target of pranks. The hoaxes included having paper fish stuck to their backs and were referred to as "poisson d'avril" or April fish. The April foolish paper fish symbolized a gullible person who was easy to catch like a fish.

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#2232 "March Lion Snow Singleton"

The first documented version of this weather phrase appeared in Thomas Fuller's 1732 compendium, Gnomologia: Adagies and Proverbs: Wise Sentences and Witty Sayings, Ancient and Modern, Foreign and British. The authors give the wording as "Comes in like a Lion, goes out like a Lamb." March begins in winter so the weather is with all probability to be more like a winter storm. Thirty-one days later is a long time when the spring sun is on the rise. The weather at the end of the month is more likely to be like a spring lamb by comparison. This saying has no other basis in science though and is likely to be wrong.

In 2019 March was certainly going out like a lion and not a lamb. The spring storm that started Friday night and lasted into late Sunday morning was well handled at all time frames by the forecast office. I deployed my rain gauge and measured 41 mm of rain from early Saturday morning through to 8 am Sunday morning. The rain changed to snow and about 5 centimetres accumulated on the ground. The Singleton Lake levels would crest at spring flood levels in another five or six days as the liquid made its way through the watershed.

Heavy bands of snow were crossing Singleton Lake into Sunday evening. A secondary vorticity centre apparent in the water vapour imagery was the cause of this heightened activity that caught my eye and appears in this painting. This weather was not well predicted although the remote sensing and the science of patterns would have given it away. The spring sun was just a faint hint in the oils. There was a lot of energy in those clouds. Ice still dominated the west basin of Singleton. I would not trust that ice to walk on it unless I was wearing my bathing suit. The water in the east basin was moody and filled with spring run-off...

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