Sundog
I have always called these sundogs but I know they can have a variety of names. This is a very bright spot of light that can pop up along the sun. In my experience this happens often during pleasant, cool weather associated with high pressure and cirrus clouds. The light reflects off ice crystals in the atmosphere making it appear red closer to the sun and blue further away as seen here. The sky is always offering us something to examine. In this case it looked very much like something reentering the atmosphere! At least in my imagination…
Read MoreHailstones
With all this talk about severe weather lately I wanted to show everyone what some real hail looks like. I collected these stones from my yard after a storm in Connecticut (really) in October (really!) a couple of years ago. These are not the uniform, smooth, rounded and typical hailstones we routinely find in severe storms. They look like something that came out of a Midwest or Great Plains monster supercell. The “severe thunderstorm” that dropped these in the middle of a quiet, cool afternoon was technically that but not a drop of rain fell, no lightning was seen and thus no...
Read MoreSevere hail in Jamestown
Turn up the volume on this one! Here’s Twan’s yard being deluged with hail during last evening’s severe thunderstorm. There are a bunch of very large stones that come down in the middle of the video especially. Most break and begin to melt by the later post-storm time Twan took the photos in the earlier post today but it is obvious some are around golf ball size.
Read MoreMammatus clouds
These are mammatus clouds and if you ever spot them you can be sure severe thunderstorms are nearby. I took this photo after a particularly vicious storm in Connecticut several years ago. What we see are basically masses of sinking cold air. Stay safe tonight with more storms across the northeast.
Read MoreDiving ducks
This past weekend I visited the extremely active Dunkirk Harbor in Dunkirk, New York. It is currently holding thousands of ducks and gulls because just about all of Lake Erie is frozen and this immediate area is kept open by the warm water from the outflow of the adjacent NRG Energy power plant. This particularly frigid year means even more birds than usual are concentrated in this pocket of heat allowing for some great birding and close-up views, especially while birds are feeding and active. I took a few of photos of diving ducks – can you identify any? The first two photos are of...
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