#2295 "Sunrise Heat Leaving My Pool"

It was raining hard outside but I had some time to paint. I remembered a sunrise from the previous week that illuminated the fog and mist rising off the still quite warm waters of Singleton Lake. That condensed moisture represents heat leaving the lake. In this case, lots of heat left. Cool overnight temperatures during the increasingly long periods of darkness means that at some point the air draining off the surrounding hills pools over the lake. The air eventually gets colder than the surface of the lake. Moisture leaves the lake in the form of water vapour using the lake as the source of the energy to supply the heat of vapourization. These vapours in turn cool and condense releasing that energy to the air. Saturated swirls of vapour rise buoyantly with the release of this heat back into the parcels of air. The process is the same as that for Arctic sea smoke. My swimming days for 2019 were numbered.

The rising sun illuminated these fingers of fog as well as a couple of jet contrails. My optimistic hope was that a sunny day would return some of that energy back into the waters of the lake so that I could continue swimming a few more days. I typically start swimming in Singleton Lake on May 15th and last until October 1st. I make the most out of our natural swimming pool.

The rain ended just as I was finishing the painting. Then I went swimming... The last swim in 2019 was on October 5th.

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