View allAll Photos Tagged cloud-based
June 18, 2009 - Kearney Nebraska US
*** Like | Follow | Subscribe | NebraskaSC ***
It's June, Hot Humid... It's Prime Time Storm Season...
Though we only had a 10% chance of any type of development of storm that afternoon & evening. In fact all of the storms that day were to stay in western Nebraska and move to the north out of range of South Central Nebraska. That obviously was wrong!
I had just finished putting on the 2nd coat of stain on the new deck. Friends had stopped over to check on my progress. I had been so involved on completing the task at hand I didn't notice the lighting to the south of the city.
Let it be said I was unprepared and these 2 storms that rolled though that evening were unexpected. It was the reason I was finishing the staining of the deck. Though I did have everything charged and ready to go just in case. Wrapped up what I could and covered the new patio as best I could which would be a waste of time due to it all blew away!
This is the 1st set of storms for that evening. I grabbed my camera & went out in front of the house. We watched this shelf cloud form just to the west of the city and come right over the top of the house & to the south.
Can I say priceless. The lightning that was illuminating the sky was building & firing off every few seconds. With the reflecting city lights, these really came out with great definition. When the base of the 1st storm came over, the lower cloud base was churnin. Some really cool scud formations under this storm.
*** Please NOTE and RESPECT the Copyright ***
Copyright 2009
Dale Kaminski @ NebraskaSC Photography
All Rights Reserved
This image may not be copied, reproduced, published or distributed in any medium without the expressed written permission of the copyright holder.
#ForeverChasing
#NebraskaSC
A murky shot of Royal Navy Westland Wessex HU.5 XT487 from No.781 Squadron, Fleet Air Arm
Painted Green and White, they were used as 'Admiral's Barges' ferrying RN VIP's around and affectionately known as 'Green Parrots'.
Note also the extra external fuel tank and the helpful step rails on her starboard side for the VIP's
This one was caught during the 1977 Queen's Silver Jubilee passing Fort Gilkicker, South West of RNAS Lee-on-Solent
The weather that day was dire with a cloud base right down almost on the deck so only the helicopter formations made it in the Flypast
Naturally later that evening the weather cleared up and the fixed wing formations of Phantoms, Buccaneers and Gannets made it past - but long after we'd left!
Scanned print from an Ilford FP4 B&W film shot with a
Zenith E/Soligor 200 mm fixed length pre-set lens
This tornado took a few different forms in it's lifetime. This was the epic dust monster phase just before it roped out and vanished!
A tornado beneath the ominous dark cloud base of a low precipitation (LP) supercell churns up a massive dust cloud as it crosses rural farmland in the plains of eastern New Mexico. This particular tornado, rated an EF-1, occurred near the small town of Floyd in May 2025. The tornado traveled over 5 miles in 17 minutes, leaving behind a trail of mangled utility poles. Fortunately no significant structures were in its path, limiting the amount of damage that resulted. Every summer severe thunderstorms like this one spawn hundreds of tornadoes across the Great Plains.
Puzzles and Prints: tom-schwabel.pixels.com
Facebook: @tomschwabelphotography
Instagram: @tomschwabelphotography
This is a copyrighted image with all rights reserved. Please don't use this image on websites, blogs, facebook, or other media without my explicit permission. See profile page for information on prints and licensing.
Another oldie from October 2012 and the obvious shot of the fence on Mam Tor but when the light is good……..! Sometimes there’s a reason an obvious shot is obvious! 😉
According to the English Heritage website: "Not many parish churches stand in ruins, and fewer still occupy sites associated with prehistoric rituals. Four thousand years separate the main late Neolithic earthwork at Knowlton and the Norman church that stands at its centre. The earthwork itself is just one part of a landscape which is one of the great Neolithic and Bronze Age ceremonial complexes in southern England.
The main earthwork at Knowlton is of a type known as a henge. There are nearly one hundred henges in Britain and Ireland, dating from about 3000 to 2000 BC. Although they are generally believed to have been ceremonial sites, it is likely that they fulfilled many functions, and may have changed their role through time.
Church Henge, as it is now known, has been protected from plough damage; the earthworks in the surrounding landscape have been less fortunate, but are still clearly visible in aerial photographs."
Taken on a day when the cloud base was only just above the church. Had hoped it would have been lower for a misty appearance.
Such a shame that a person or persons had climbed the ruins to the top of the tower to tie ribbons to some vegetation. Why do people carve graffiti on old monuments? The latest I saw was dated 2022!
The day started with low cloud in the Langdale Valley. We checked the mountain weather service which said the cloud base was at 350m and the upper level at 750m. We headed up The Band and crossed onto climbers traverse below Bowfell. As we headed up The Great Slab the cloud started to drop over Bowfell Buttress giving the most rewarding views. (Previous image of my partner on Climbers Traverse). The Summit of Bowfell exceeded our expectations and gave us this view of the Scafell Massif. An excellent afternoon on the fells.
The sky is completely covered by a grey layer of cloud with some lighter parts, which is common with Stratocumulus stratiformis. The layer is thick enough that the Sun would not be visible, hence it is of the variety opacus. The cloud base exhibits undulations, indicating an additional variety: undulatus.
A trip back to last winter for a sunrise shot, The sun just breaks through the cloud base to shine it`s light on me .
.
Spider plant that is.
Taken with the camera that is part of the Lightroom mobile app on the iphone. The app shoots a DNG raw file and can be edited in Lr mobile or the Lr cloud based desktop app.
A very misleading weather forecast but what a day it has turned out to be! With that low cloud base both the temperature and humidity were very high. The surf was fierce as can be seen.
I did not see any surfers hooked by the anglers and not too many surfers caught their waves.
Angling seems to me to be all about contemplation whilst surfing is all about participation and anticipation.
Blease Fell Panorama.
One from the archives.
A view looking down St-Johns-In-The-Vale from Blease Fell.
Clough Head and the Helvellyn range are seen under the low cloud base.
Thirlmere is seen to the centre of the image, whilst sunlight illuminates Bleaberry Fell. The prominent small body of water is Tewet Tarn.
En vol amb l'Arcus M, D-KLIE (C4) ultima meravella en velers biplaça de Schempp Hirth. Un dels millors a nivell mundial.
Vista del actual buque insignia en biplazas de Shempp Hirth, el Arcus M, (D-KLIE) en vuelo, casi en base de nubes con turbulencia.
Flying cross country the Arcus M, D-KLIE (C4) almost at the clouds base, with light turbulence.
Looking down from the top of the Brocken to the curve as the train still has a little while to go before it reaches the summit. At this point we were above the cloud base, totally amazing. After this photo with my spikes on I walked down to the track and into the trees down the line. The snow up to my knees in parts.
The Plancius slowly sails by as we head south, still just above 80 degrees north and another weather change on the way! The sun could be seen below the cloud base in the distance and an etherial mist started to appear, we did not know it but the best landscapes were still to come!
Gliding north on the first full day of my week at Lac D'Annecy, I was soaring over peaks that, in hindsight, I don't know why I hadn't flown over before.
All that lies between me and the city which gives the lake it name is the ridge of Mont Baron and Mont Veyrier.
Despite the great sky, my flight was a simple return trip as far north along Mont Veyrier as I dared, for fear of entering airspace, before heading back to Talloires. Before I launched, the sky looked a little ominous, and as such I didn't prepare for a long or high flight, but once in the air I realised the error of my ways as I soared up to the low cloud base, fleeting in and out of the whispy edge of the clouds with endless forest below, and rocky crags above, looking other-worldy through the cloud.
From Hartsop above How looking towards the Pennines. If you look at the top left you can make out the Scottish uplands rising above the UK wide cloud base. It's a fact that most UK airports had ground flights all week. This weather was something special and I was lucky enough to catch it.
See my album Christmas Eve 2006.
I don't want to hear,
I don't want to know
what nobody knows,
on another plain
another level
another world for all it's sincerity
out of reach
out to teach
for want of the other side
and all it may preach
let life be still
if it will
for your inner will
be still
free it all
if you care at all...
and I think you do
I believe I do
I see we all do
as we come and go
returning here
leaving there
following everywhere
one and all
within this world
we travel
coming and going
let all the nice people pass through
for nobody ever stops
to stop,
a momentary ticking thought of time...
anglia24
in the clutches of June 4, 2008
Wooloondool Catchment Sunset in 'natural' texture....
I asked a friend to tell me about these unusual clouds; he obviously has time on his hands but it is very informative:
Cumulus-Nimbus. (abbreviation CB) - They are the thunder storm cloud. Their development requires 3 components;
1) Sufficient/adequate moisture
2) unstable air mass (due uneven/isolated heating (ground conduction resulting in convection)
3) a trigger to start the convection process, after which the Adiabatic Lapse Rate takes over (ie., ALR = uneven reduction in temperature of rising air pockets dependant on its moisture content thus effecting its relative density and subsequently creating a 'boiling' effect, hence the bulging cauliflower type appearance in the lower levels - same as ordinary Cumulus clouds in basic appearance apart from the 'Anvil' shaped top).
There are 2 main triggers; mountain range or, in our case, the coinciding of an alien air mass as experienced with the arrival of a cool change (ie., 'Cold Front').
The Anvil shape is characteristic of a CB. A graphic illustration of 'Wind Shear' with altitude gain (increase in wind speed with altitude gain).
The CB cloud must exceed 20,000 from base to top for it to be able to generate hail. The instability within such a cloud is sufficient to cause structural failure to all aircraft except smaller, stronger military aircraft. Prior to airborne radar being fitted to airline aircraft (about 1960 ~ 1970 ?) there were many 'unexplained' airliner losses due to this reason (Viscount over Botany Bay, Sydney was last large airliner lost in Australia due to this reason.
Stratus and Stratus-Cumulus. The remainder of the cloud is "Stratus" and "Stratus Cumulus" (S) (SC). You can see examples of both in the photo. The lower fragmented pieces are referred to as 'Scud' and are often as low as 500 ft above ground.
If the base of the strata-form cloud is between SL and 8,000 amsl then it is called Stratus Cumulus (SC). When the cloud base for this type of cloud is above 8,000 it begins to form slightly different visual characteristics and is called Alto Stratus (AS). There is usually no turbulence associated with Stratus cloud (absence of convection), however, the existence of such cloud can sometimes mask the presence, in the lower levels of developing CB's.
Thank you Bruce, I am sure viewers will appreciate.
IMG_6540
Winter Sundays in March 1979 were very busy on the Settle - Carlisle line. There were the usual WCML diversions for annual engineering work and additional ECML diversions due to the collapse of the Penmanshiel tunnel.
An unidentified Class 40 is ready to pick up a pilotman at Blea Moor loops as there was single line working over Ribblehead. Semaphore signals, both water towers and both railway cottages are still standing. Ingleborough and Simon Fell are both lost above the cloud base. The natural scene persists but the man made scene has changed considerably during the intervening years.
Copyright Stephen Willetts - No unauthorised use
On Rabbit Pass between the Wilkin and East Matukituki Valleys NZ. We chose to camp on the pass to enjoy the amazing sunset and views from up there. It was worth it even though we had to wait until late morning for the cloud base to lift and provide visibility for the descent into the East Matukituki.
The large tornado funnel is under the rotating cloud base at the lower left. Video: youtu.be/EsiMaGcRzHQ
When I looked over to Pen Yr Ole Wen, this one little area really caught my attention. It was how the cloud base was just being caught in the ridges of the top and they seemed to linger there as the cloud passed on by. What finished the photo was a little touch of an angry sky.
Canon EOS 6D + 24-105 F/4 @80mm
ISO 100
F/10
Exsposure Time - 1/10 of a second
The only Dragonfly that i saw all day and then only for a few seconds. The weather was very windy and a closed cloud base.
Vlog
Waking with sore legs, my mood was lifted as I realised I was in the mountain Inn at Claunie and not in my one man tent. A leisurely start and a full Scottish Breakfast soon got us going after our long day the day before.
The forecast wasn’t looking good with Gale force winds for the summits and a weather front due to hit by midday! So we decided on a nice wee leg stretch up the Munro Carn Ghluasaid. Only a couple of kilometres from the car park, this was the ideal target to bag before the storm hit Glen Shiel!
As we drove the short distance to the start of the walk we could see the clouds were moving quickly over the tops, however they were OVER the tops which was a good sign , unlike the previous day!!.
An excellent stalkers path zig zagged its way up the mountain and before we knew it we were on the ridge leading to the broad summit plateaux. The cloud base was still above the summits and the views were magnificent, even in the wind that was trying its best to blow us over!! To be honest this felt more like a shoulder of Sgurr nan Conbhairean than a summit in itself!! Anyway it was good to see a view as when I did the round of three many moons ago it was in wet driech conditions with views of nothing!!
A few summit selfies and we about turned and set off back to the car before the rain came. For once – and unexpectedly – our timing was perfect as the heavens opened about ten minutes after we reached the car. Another fine outing
Royal Air Force Lockheed C-130J-30 Hercules C.4 ZH877 "ASCOT103" seen just under the cloud base over the North East of England heading South bound.
05/05/21
During my week in the Jura, I was incredibly lucky to have just one day where the cloud base came down to meet us! This made the day grey and damp, but otherwise ok! Not a day for insect hunting, so I decided to explore the 'Cascades du Hérisson', a series of 7 waterfalls following the Hérisson (Hedgehog!) river down the gorge.
This is the first, at the top where I started. (It's 7.5 km return with an ascent / descent of 255 m). The downside to the dampness was that the rocks were VERY slippery in places making it a bit hairy at times! Lol! But it was worth it! There'll be many more pics from this walk to come! ;-)
Wicklow way above Glendalough Co Wicklow. The track rises into the cloud base approx 300M further on
I have no idea what mountain this is. I took a drive out to the Lochcarron area and found the cloud base to be too low and not enough water in the river for the shot I wanted.
I took one photo at a loch, and on the drive home the clouds broke enough to make me pull over and get the long lens and a grad filter out.
This is my first photo in a good while now, hopefully that's me back in the saddle again!
Video frame grab from my tripoded camcorder, I was running to the car to retrieve my GoPro when this took place. This stage lasted no more than 15 seconds after the funnel became fully condensed, as the cloud base rapidly lowered/expanded while the tornado vortex re-organized into a violent (EF4) wedge.
Note the "ghost train" inflow jet off to the left (indicated by the rising dust above the trees) as well as the murky dust cloud behind it which conceals the weakening, but still ongoing EF3 tornado which had formed just northeast of Ottumwa and passed near Farson, Hedrick and Martinsburg.
I submitted this frame grab (with slightly different horizon leveling/contrast adjustment) to the Quad Cities National Weather Service office, it appears on their event write-up for this outbreak
www.weather.gov/dvn/summary_03312023
as well as on the Wikipedia page for the event:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tornado_outbreak_of_March_31_%E2%80...
Early Sunday morning.... after a few days of wandering the eastern sierra's.... a small black car pulled to the side of the road along the 395 highway in Lee Vining Ca, just before the familiar 120 turnoff to South Tufa. A single shadowy figure strolled thru the moonlit darkness with purpose, carrying his light recording instrumentation like some sort of crazy scientist. He obviously came to capture the moon set as it slowly but surely began to inch it's way down to the cloud base hovering over the eastern sierra ridge. The storm that just recently tore thru the mid west and all across the united states this week was just now reaching this shack, his shack, down from the arctic... sprinkling ice crystals across the mountain tops and down onto the Lee Vining valley. Like two old friends, not a word is spoken. In the distance a small light in his car can be seen, if you look close you might see someone putting make-up on :), it's a strange day indeed. As the hours passed and the moon sunk below the cloud base, the flash light paint brush slowly lost it's magic power and light from the sun behind this view quietly illuminated this moment. Drizzles came and went and for hours he waited with his loving companion. Documenting the moment precisely at givin intervals.... a snap here and a snap there should do. As he lay perched with his wide angle directly in front of this beautiful shack somewhere lost inside the shrubbery stalks... quietly composing and totally present.
(3 Hours have now passed)
Earthshaker: "Mizzy, I'm ready to go."
Mizzy: "Okay babe, you ready?"
(pause, he looks around once again, quietly contemplating whether he made the right choice or not, hmmmm... his eyes fixated on the clouds and sun directly behind him in the direction of South Tufa and the Mono Lake Basin... a slight smile crosses his face.)
Mizzy: "... just one minute Babe, I'm waitin to see whats gonna happen when the sun shines thru those clouds behind us."
(quietly and with purpose he dives back into the world of his viewfinder...as the forground begins to lighten from direct sun rays who, after hours of trying, have finally reached this exact place and time.)
Earthshaker: "Babe! BABE!" LOOK! A RAINBOW"
(from his quiet and controlled composure.... he looks up into the sky, grinning as usual, he moves quickly like drunky the clown, or perhaps like a ninja in his first years of training, clumsily kicking and fumbling his way backward over the brush until the beauty of the full arched rainbow, which lasted all but 2 or 3 minutes was in his full frame. Enough time precisely for about 7 snaps... each a bit less brilliant as the absolute first snap. And then it was gone.)
Mizzy: "Ok, Babe. I'm ready to go.
I still find it hard to comprehend the mixed content in this image. My dutch hiking pal Rob and I had just turned around about 150 feet short of the summit of Mount Teide. That would put our altitude at marginally above 12,000 feet.
Rob is seen cautiously making progress down the ice encrusted lava, whilst central to the view is the top of the Mount Teide gondola. Beyond that, bare of snow and ice due to the baking winter sun is an expanse of high larva field and then further back a significant cloud base can be seen making its way towards us.
Those who know the high mountains will understand that the combination of the severe ice and encroaching cloud were plenty enough reason for Rob and I to terminate out ascent.
Image taken 04.03.2018.
A cold glimpse of Wellington and its harbour before the clouds took over this morning. Wrights Hill, Wellington, New Zealand. A stitched panorama.
A nearly branchless strike during blue hour. An arcus cloud hangs below the main cloud base.
Used a Fujifilm X-T3 in movie mode @ 4fps.
We're only a third of the way through summer, but I'm already longing for autumn. Once again flicking through past photographs whilst waiting for my camera to be repaired; this was taken on my second ever photo-hike in the Peak District, last year in October.
The day brought with it amazing conditions, starting with a thin low cloud base that allowed for the blue to be visible behind it, producing something between a rainbow and a fogbow, more intense in luminosity than anything I've ever seen.
As the sun broke through, these colourful arches formed and the landscape within was spot lit intensely creating the vision of a proscenium arch surrounding a stage.
A fortuitous gust of wind arranged thick clouds to frame the Picos de Europa mountains in Northern Spain.
We spent most of the trip to this spot wondering what the big deal was and cursing the clouds that had dogged us all day. Jim, the more energetic of our group decided to head off to the next hill to see what was there while the rest of us sat down for a Snickers bar.
A few minutes later, a small gap in the clouds exposed a patch of distant mountain and a with a few more gusts the gap begain to expand. Hoping that the opening would expose more, I picked up my camera and moved into position. The gap expanded more than I had initially hoped for, and then the foreground clouds cleared for a few seconds revealing Jim taking a photo in the foreground.
Despite waiting in the cold for another two hours, that was the only decent view we got of the mountain as the cloud base rose higher until we couldn't see more than 5 metres ahead of us.
Picos de Europa, Northern Spain, 2012
Canon EOS 5D Mark II with Canon EF 70-200mm f/4L IS
My quest to obtain an amazing lightning photograph continues. The storms this night primarily had cloud to cloud lightning and only a couple bolts reached the ground. This one barely got into the frame, but check out those crawlers going for miles across the sky, all the way across the frame! Sadly, junk clouds obscure the view partially, but it was amazing to periodically see bolts leap for 5+ miles along the underside of the cloud base. Hopefully more storms next week.
Today wasn't really textbook sensible flying weather. Unstable air giving a risk of thunderstorms, and wind turbines showing that I'd have to launch from the wrong side of Tap O' Noth didn't stop me taking a look up to the hill fort anyway. Sure enough the sky bubbled a little ominously, but the shade created by the menacing clouds starved the ground of the heat needed to create them, so as I stood on launch the sky cleared a little. Little puffs of air did roll up the steep southern face so I prepared to fly; the sun would soon be heating the farmland below, so the puffs may have a bit more energy by the time I launched, or that was my theory. In fact, as soon as I was ready to launch the wind switched 180 degrees and firmly stayed that way, so I foolhardily carried my wing to the much less steep north-west corner in the slightly desperate hope of simply flying round the west of the hill and back to a field on the south side.
That plan seemed to work, an easy launch led to me gliding round the hill and then bumping in to a surprise thermal which was strong enough to carry me up 800m, well above the peak, in to a position where I could tentatively explore the cloud-scape.
Conditions were still a little ominous; storm clouds tend to suck in air underneath them, creating conditions which to the naive pilot seem especially easy to soar and climb in, but quickly turn in to terror as the usually easy task of getting back to the ground becomes seemingly impossible. So I was fairly conservative in my flying, monitoring the growth of the bubbling clouds, and the extent of remaining blue sky that would be my escape route should I find myself climbing at an alarming rate.
It's often the case that the air moves in interesting ways; today it was blowing from the north between ground and peak height, but completely opposed at cloud-base. The forecast was for air to be generally converging on the very area I was flying in, another inducer of rising air, resulting in a myriad of clouds of differing levels. It made for a beautiful aerial playground where instead of being under all the clouds, I had the chance to fly over and around them for a change.
Here I'm looking down at Gartly, just visible in the centre of the frame. Huntly is catching the sun to the north, in the distance left of frame.
Three USAF KC135's cruise the air to air refuelling area off our Norfolk coast. One Euro Fighter a potential customer.
BUT, at the time we had noisy fighter jets overhead above the cloud base.
Not had their transponders on I guess, so not showing on radar.
DENVER,Colo.- My daughter Penelope plays with the curtains in our apartment on February 15, 2014. I spend most of my time taking care of my four-year-old, I photograph her more than any other subject. If I'm lucky she'll be pleased when she is old enough to appreciate them.
Normally I keep my family images private on this platform, but flickr is the only place I can store my images with little worry of filling up that unprecedented amount of free storage.I exhaust other cloud based services within an hour of signing up. On flickr, I have more than 7,000 images stored, which is 3 percent of a terabyte. So now I use flickr to host images for my blogs, who charge too much money for too little storage. . It's a no-brainer really.
I'm just going to share what I want to share from here on out. Family or not.
Half of the experience of landscape photography is the journey up the point you press the shutter and even long after you’ve packed down and started heading back home. It’s why to the photographer, the final piece often has far more meaning than just the artistic principles, compositional technique and processing that culminated in its being.
When I set out I hadn’t realised that a named storm had hit the UK. I’d checked all the local charts and forecasts but hadn’t really zoomed out to the bigger picture, perhaps rather foolishly. My route started in Hathersage where I made my way up to High Neb on Stanage Edge, the rain was relentless and the landscape disappeared and re-emerged from the cloud-base. I’m an optimist when it comes to shooting in harsh conditions but the driving rain made it impossible to shoot anything without the lens being covered in droplets.
Having found the limits of my waterproofs ability to keep my dry and soaked to the bone at this point, I decided to press on along the edge along to Higger Tor and photograph the Kit Kat stones, as I had intended to on New Year’s Eve. An altogether different scene presented itself to the one I had been expecting just two days earlier, with cloud and rain straking through Burbage Valley and between Higger Tor and Carl Wark in the background.
As I was photographing the scene, I realised the last time I shot it was also during a named storm, that being Storm Claudio in November 2022. Quite the opposite of this photograph, dramatic light was the defining feature with a contrast between cool and warm hues that puts it up there with one of my favourite photographs. The experience of the day carried on well into the evening, the flooding and landslides caused by Henk resulting in me being stranded in Nottingham for the night although my stay at the Bentinck Hotel was an extremely pleasant, if largely unanticipated one!
INSTAGRAM @caseyhowdenphoto www.instagram.com/caseyhowdenphoto/
IMAGE INFO
- Viewpoint is looking north-north-east from Central Lookout hill (~320m south-south-east of the Central Lookout carpark area off Stirling Range Drive) after some heavy showers had passed through.
- Talyuberlup Peak (783m A.S.L.) is obscured by the cloud base.
- Peak heights (above sea level) & approximate line of sight distances (from my viewpoint) are courtesy of the Peak Visor online panoramic 3d database:
peakvisor.com/panorama.html?lat=-34.42512591796618&ln...
************************
SOURCE INFO
- Original 35mm frame captured using a CANON AF35M 2 (aka "Sure Shot 2" or "Autoboy 2") compact camera, with KODAK CL 200 (aka KODACOLOR VR 200) 35mm color negative film.
************************
PROCESS INFO
- Digitized using a CANON Canoscan 8800F scanner at 3200 dpi, 48 bit color.
- Digital scan was post-processed with Adobe Photoshop CS Windows to remove artifacts, correct color shift, improve sharpness & restore overall image quality from the poor quality original.
On the first day of this summer's flying holiday in Annecy, I was confronted with an ominously cloudy set of peaks behind the Planfait launch. Everywhere else, the sky looked nice, full of puffy cumulous, invitingly marking the many thermals around the lake, but first some height was needed to get to those, and I tentatively drifted back, climbing above the carpet of forest, under the blanket of cloud, with neither world seeming to offer much forgiveness should get too close...
The cloud shrouded the peaks of Les Dents; to find myself swallowed up in it would be unpleasant to say the least, as the priority of finding clear air away from those sheer cliffs would be compounded with the fear of crossing paths with any other pilot who exercised similarly poor judgement. So tentatively I pushed a little further into the wedge of landscape rising to meet the cloud, continuously watching the other wings to assess whether anyone was climbing - or being 'sucked' - beyond their control.
Fortunately the cloud base was rising too, the occasional break in the base revealing tantalising glimpses of prehistoric rock-faces before swallowing them back up in the grey wisps. Steady as she goes paid off though, and soon I was pushing forward, away from the mountains again. Heading for the clear air I was climbing all the while, briefly through the base of the cloud into the white room, in a trajectory roughly calculated and backed up with crossed fingers, that took me out of the side of wisps a few seconds later.