#2619 "Sunset on February Cold"

#2619 "Sunset on February Cold" 10x10 inches

The surface winds are typically stronger with cold air advection as the coldest air sinks to the lowest levels. These stronger surface winds drift the virga well ahead of the cumulus cloud producing the ice crystals and small snow flakes in the first place. I painted these virga shafts as they reminded me of the jelly fish like tendrils that people often use to describe virga. The backlit trails of ice crystals would be a challenge to interpret in oils while still keeping the art loose and painterly. 

Visible Satellite Image

These streets of cold, turbulent stratocumulus were originating off Georgian Bay aligned with the blustery northwesterly winds. I believe that these streets of cloud are formed from the same processes that create Langmuir streaks in the ocean. Friction and instability in the Ekmann spiral produce vertical shear and a resulting circulation that penetrates throughout the mixed planetary boundary layer. This process can create oceanic Langmuir streaks in just 30 minutes of forcing. It takes an hour or more of forcing by the wind to really establish atmospheric Langmuir cloud streets. The cold air was still dominating the weather pattern. 

Atmospheric Langmuir cloud streets

The fact that eastern North America experiences colder winter weather while the Globe is undergoing rapid and dramatic warming, perplexes many people. The two facts are actually quite consistent and compatible. I have been writing about the science of winds in my Art and Science Bog. 

Globally, February 2022 was the sixth warmest February on record. The extreme heat over Russia, Siberia and the North Pole are striking. The temperature anomaly map for North America reveals the persistent cold trough over eastern North America while the warm ridge of high pressure dominates the dry Rockies. That cold trough will deliver moisture and protect eastern Ontario from the serious impacts of Global warming for a while - but be assured, the climate is changing faster than we ever thought possible. The laws of science and nature are irrefutable. 

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