#0537 "Layer Cake Cloud"

I took a few hours off on Saturday afternoon (August 11, 2001). I didn't have time to go anywhere so the front hill of Watershed Farm on the 12th Concession of King Township looked good. The layers of stratocumulus as they receded off to the east, were something I wanted to capture. Between brush strokes, I threw the green tennis ball for the family Chesapeake, my constant companion along with the Maine Coon cat. The clouds were moving around so much that it was tricky to catch the effect while also getting the shape and colours of a few of the individual clouds.

These stratocumulus tell us that the atmosphere is stable with a subsidence inversion due to an approaching ridge of high pressure. The banding is due to gravity waves with the brisk westerly winds coming off the Niagara escarpment to the west. It was not going to rain for at least another day so that the drought would continue. I finished just in time to barbeque hamburgers for supper. Life is good. It would have been nice to have a layer cake for dessert but the stacked clouds would have to do.

I did not realize at the time that the horrific 911 was only a month in the future.

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