#2073 "March Snow Virga"

Fast forward to step number 2073 from early March 2018...

I never get tired of the Singleton sunsets. This is from 5:50 pm on Tuesday March 6th, 2018. A winter storm was on the way and the story revealed itself in the clouds. The very large deformation skin was leading the way for the warm conveyor belt feeding heat and moisture energy to the storm. The clouds at distinct quasi horizontal levels revealed the intersection of that layer with the larger and three dimensional deformation zone skin. The cloud elements were sliding southeastward along the deformation zones. This revealed that the col in the deformation zone was much further to the north. This in turn revealed that most of the storm was going to pass well to the north of Singleton which in fact it did.

It does not take much cloud thickness to generate snow crystals. We watched these trails of snow drift downward at one metre per second into the weaker winds below. The snow flakes would sublimate long before reaching the ground. This snow virga also revels much about the atmospheric winds and the characteristics of the atmosphere.

I felt this storm story needed to be retold in oils. The new water vapour imagery is really quite beautiful and confirms the diagnosis of the sky. It snowed for the next three days and returned winter to Singleton Lake.

I used a lot of paint on this slippery and smooth surface. It was fun as art should be.