Christmas clouds

12/23/11, 12:30 pm facing west

Here's the variety of clouds we received in Central Virginia as Christmas gifts in 2011. 

The shadowed cumulus clouds of the eve of Christmas Eve were rounded and soft. They drifted slowly northeast singly and in little groups across a beautiful blue sky. 

12/24/11, 2:30 pm, looking north

12/25/11, Noon, facing northwest

The wind picked up on a cool Christmas Eve especially in the upper atmosphere and whipped up long tendrils of cirrus clouds throughout the sky. We had lots of contrails from people flying home for Christmas. These quickly became fuzzy and soft like a woolly yarn draped high in the air. I particularly enjoyed the barbed cloud shape on the right at mid-page.

Christmas morning was still breezy and seasonably cool--slight frost, but the birdbath wasn't frozen. These majestic cumulus clouds were headed northeast around noon. They have no shadow because the sun was above and just over my left shoulder. They were all slanting up to the right which makes them seem optimistic I think.