#2082 "Singleton Summer Shower"

A cloud from the summer of 2017... the summer of 2018 is right around the corner. Practicing in the studio for the plein air work that is coming...

There was a very large towering cumulus on the western horizon. The rain was certainly pounding down and possibly soaking some cut hay or raining on someone's parade. Such are the risks of scattered afternoon showers in an unstable summer air mass. Somebody certainly got wet but not everyone. Most people would not even realize that showers where in the area. The probability of precipitation forecast was also certainly less than 50 percent. Every forecast is a gamble in a fashion. I wrote a lengthy scientific paper on the real meaning and application of POP, the probability of precipitation forecast as it is determined by the space and time of the prediction and also the meteorology of the event. I suppose that it was too complicated and most people just reverted to the simple correlations between the POP number and the typical words used to describe the probability of getting wet. Oh my...

Farmers need a proper and scientific measure of the probability that their crops might get wet. POP is not the answer for them. I have some ideas though. I recall an irate farmer who called to talk to a meteorologist at the Ontario Weather Centre with a suggestion on where he would like to shove 50 acres of very wet hay. It was not my forecast.

I have painted this scene many times but every day is different. The weather and lighting is certainly unique for each day.

I used a lot of paint on this very rough panel. It was fun on a rainy day.