#2643 "Singleton April Afternoon Stratocumulus"

#2643 "Singleton April Afternoon Stratocumulus"
11x14 oils on canvas 

My chores were done for the day so I headed to the lakeshore to paint. The vigourous cumulus clouds had caught my eye at lunch but by the time I could grab my easel, the clouds had transformed into much flatter turbulent stratocumulus. It was a cloudy day but the weather was more than just interesting. There was another spring storm on the way. 

Outstanding on the lake shore

Water Vapour Imagery Showing Swells
over Eastern Ontario

The story of the atmospheric swells piling up within the anticyclonic companion of the warm conveyor belt was very interesting. I needed the water vapour imagery in order to read that story. These tales would put people to sleep in the weather centre but I found them intriguing. 

The ocean of air above our head has many similarities to the seas that cover three-quarters of the globe. The depth of the warm conveyor belt gets ever more shallow as you approach the forward edge and the leading deformation zone. The large gravity waves generated by the strong spring jet core propagate from the source like ocean swells and pile up on that atmospheric beach. I attributed the multiple bands of thicker moisture on the warm side of the anticyclonic confluent asymptote of the deformation zone to be atmospheric swells. (Also see "Keep an Open Mind" for more explanations)

 I added the atmospheric swells to the accompanying graphic and coloured in the swell crests with "purple water vapour moisture". The swell troughs must be drier. The entire column of the warm conveyor belt is more likely to be moist on the cyclonic companion side of the flow and both the crests and troughs of the swells might be full of moisture and less apparent in satellite imagery. This is the kind of stuff that the atmosphere taught me, especially on night shifts. 

I thought this might need another graphic for
a better explanation... 

I listened to the sounds of the trumpeter swans, geese and ducks as I painted. The ducks would scatter when the bald eagle would do an occasional fly over. I heard the loon as well. We were still waiting along with Mister loon for the Missus to arrive. 

The breeze got chilly on my hands but at least there were no biting bugs. 

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