Cirrus and cumulus

05/15/12, 2 pm, looking north

Here is a mix of cloud types, high cirrus wisps in the upper middle, and chunky shadowed cumulus below. The blue of the sky is deepening in color as we transition from spring to summer.

Mother's Day feather

05/13/12, 11:30 am looking west

Since I'm right handed, I imagined grasping this feathered quill pen near the point at the left middle of the painting. I thought this was a fine image for Mother's Day, at least a good one for a writer and artist. Since we have cirrus clouds here, you can assume windy conditions at least up high where the wind teases out the ice crystals into these delicate shapes. It was also breezy at ground level and again warm, reaching 79 degrees F in the afternoon. The humidity has decreased slightly which made for a more clement day.

Weather pattern

05/07/12, 2:30 pm, looking southwest

This weather system moved into Central Virginia on Monday, May 7th with big, fat cumulus clouds and average seasonal temperatures (74 degrees F). The scattered clouds blew along and formed interesting gray and white shapes and gaps of pale blue sky.


By the following afternoon, the sky was overcast with layers of gray cloud punctuated by light breaking through in places. The day had warmed to the upper 70's and the humidity was thick.

05/08/12, 2 pm looking northeast

Wednesday was slightly cooler with 100 percent humidity. The air felt thick and heavy. By afternoon the dark and threatening clouds spawned heavy showers with thunderstorms overnight. The total rainfall reached almost an inch.

05/09/12, 4 pm looking west

 The next morning was cool and clearing with a clean fresh feeling and a nice breeze. Little disorganized stratus clouds with higher cirrus above them covered the sky. The cool front had swept through and brought a lovely day. 


The weather system was complete--a cycle of clear, cloudy, rain, clearing with a warm to cool temperature change.

05/10/12, 11:45 am looking east

High cirrus

03/30/12, 2 pm, looking west

These high whippy cirrus clouds covered the sky most of this day although later in the afternoon it was overcast. When you see cirrus there are winds up there and some of those were gusting around down low also. This was a nice spring day of moderate temperatures (high 60's) and soft breezes. March seems to be going out like a lamb.

Puff daddies

03/16/12, 6 pm, looking northwest

03/17/12, 1 pm, looking northeast

This weekend was a puff fest with large, low cumulus and high, thin cirrus clouds showing off against a very blue sky. With temperatures in the 70's and 80's, it feels like spring in Central Virginia. Trees are making new leaves in bright greens and rose reds. The azaleas, forsythia and spirea are full of blossoms. Even the Japanese Yoshino cherry trees in DC are blooming early this year.

03/18/12, 4 pm, looking northwest

Another altocumulus and cirrus day

03/08/12, 9 am, looking northwest

Another warm day that began with cirrus clouds joined by low cumulus clouds. With a high today of 75 degrees F and gusting winds, the sky was a changing panorama of high and low clouds. Later in the day, the cumulus clouds grew in size to become massive towers racing across the sky.


A cold front is following this warm air coming through Central Virginia overnight bringing rain on Friday. Saturday is forecast to be clear and cool, a good night for enjoying a bonfire and a moon only two nights past full.

Warm cloudscape

02/07/12, 10 am, looking northwest

This beautiful spring-like (68 degrees F) day began with pale high cirrus clouds. As the morning went on, the altocumulus clouds began to move in low. One can see the more irregular rounded shape of the altocumulus clouds at the bottom of the painting.


By noon, the cirrus clouds had thinned or moved higher still. They were almost transparent. The cumulus clouds moved in a white fluffy pack across the sky floating gracefully northeast.

Spring-like day

02/15/12, 11 am, looking southwest

So the high today is forecast to be about 60 degrees F and the pale sun is shining on the crocuses, daffodils and sweet winter daphne. It is mid-February and feels like spring. This winter we've had about five days (and nights) that were wintry. Winter as in cold, dark, frost on the car, frozen bird baths, and icy steps.


These cirrus clouds were some of the few in the sky which was a robust blue this morning. Rain is on the way tomorrow.

Clouding up

02/13/12, 5:30 pm, looking northwest

Late in the day on Monday, February 13th, the clouds began to gather with a mix of cirrus and cumulus clouds. A weather change is on the way with warmer temperatures and rain later in the week. 


Monday's high was 35 and low was 18 degrees F. Even though it was cold, one could feel the warmth and humidity on the breeze. The rest of the week looks more like highs in the low 50's and lows in the mid-30's.


Days are longer now with sunset coming by 5:45 pm and later each day. These mostly cirrus clouds were not yet stained with sunset colors, but had lovely lavender shadows.

Cirrus circus

02/06/12, 2 pm, facing west

Such a wonderful cloud day! I paint one painting per day and if something gorgeous happens in the sky after I've started my one painting, I let it go. 


Monday was an amazing sky day--beautiful clouds all day long. That's why I called it the cirrus circus, a dazzling parade of cirrus clouds in many different shapes, colors and styles to delight and entertain.


This cirrus flaming feather was dominant in the west for several hours until dissipated by the winds.  How to make something look so cold and soft at the same time is a challenge.

Cirrus bellwether

02/03/12, 2 pm, facing west

A bellwether is an indicator of trends and comes from the bell around the neck of the ram (or wether) leading a flock of sheep. Cirrus clouds often presage a weather change, and we've had lots of changes this winter. Cold fronts followed by warm fronts--both passing through and bringing rain.


These cirrus clouds were laced over central Virginia on Friday, January 3rd in the early afternoon. We expected overcast skies on Friday but that didn't arrive until  afternoon with brief showers after dark.


We are finally closer to average winter temperatures with highs in the low 50's and lows in the 30's. This cold front may bring some actually winter-like temperatures.

Cirrus with altocumulus

02/01/12, 10 am, facing northwest

More like April than January, today's high was 70 degrees F with an anticipated low of 49 degrees tonight. The crocuses are blooming along with some early daffodils. Coral pink quince blossoms dance in the warm breeze. Pansies hold their flowers high and dandelions bloom in the lawns.


Today's clouds began with an overcast sky that broke into this pattern of low cumulus and high cirrus clouds by mid-morning. We had a variety of clouds throughout the day with taller cumulus with dark, dramatic shadows developing later in the afternoon. Rain tonight.

Six-month cirrus

01/31/12, 2 pm, facing north

This painting marks six months of cloud and sky studies. What a lot I've learned in that time about cloud types, stars and planets, phases of the moon, ice crystals and prevailing winds. It seems that in central Virginia, the winds usually move from the southwest to the northeast. Basically, most winds blow up the US east coast.


Tuesday's cirrus clouds were wide ranging and varied in shape. These are whipped in an arc across the sky from west to east. They fan out into a wider shape as the wind blows them east. I like the curved clouds hugging the horizon at the bottom of the painting. It was another unseasonably warm day with a high of 69 degrees F.


Another thing I've learned in six months of blogging is how to allow comments on the posts. I changed the setting yesterday and you should be able to comment now.

Icy cirrus, high in the sky

01/26/12, 10 am, looking south

By Thursday morning, the low cumulus clouds had blown off and revealed the cirrus wisps high in the sky. Although it was a warm (65 degrees F) and sunny day in Virginia, way up high where these clouds are, it was probably -4 to -22 degrees F.


Cirrus clouds are composed of ice crystals and blown into their classic tendrils by winds. The challenge in painting cirrus clouds is how definite to make them. I've found that it helps to turn the paper between layers of color to stop myself from repeatedly painting over the same shapes. By their very nature, cirrus clouds are abstract, soft facets of cloud. An oxymoron in the sky--soft facets!

Solar flare

01/24/12, 5:30 pm, looking west

The sun returned to Central Virginia today. I know it was there all the time, but we couldn't see it for all the clouds, mist and fog. And, coincidentally, today the earth receives the largest solar flare in six years. 


These blazing clouds are two contrails and one wispy cirrus paisley shape that reflected the colors of the setting sun. So nice that the sun is setting later and later each day. Sunset was 5:24 pm on January 24th and a little more than a minute later each day. Oh, and the high today was 65 degrees F!

Cold cirrus wisps

01/14/12, 1:30 pm, looking west

The sky was full of teased cirrus wisps on this cold day--sort of sounds like a food! Fresh cirrus wisps, ice-cold cirrus wisps! These look like rooster tails to me, but cirrus uncinus are usually called "mare's tails". 


Unicinus in the name is Latin for hook and refers to the wispy curls the wind makes in the cirrus clouds. Cirrus uncinus generally indicates the presence of high- speed winds, which pilots often associate this cloud with turbulence.


Cirrus uncinus do not necessarily indicate any weather change. They can come before a warm front although that isn't the case on this day. It is getting very cold.

Weather change

01/12/12, 9:30 am, facing northwest

Yesterday's rain and low clouds gave way to this broken pattern of loose altocumulus blowing northeast with high cirrus above them. These clouds are the back of the rain that covered Central Virginia all day yesterday. Today's forecast of partly sunny and warm (60 degrees F) is the warm before the cold. Tonight will see a cold front move in from the west carrying with it a brief shower and a lows in the low 30's.


These soft, diaphanous layers covered the sky in all direction this morning, Thursday, January 12th, at about 9:30 am. Two hours later, all the cumulus clouds had blown away and just the high wispy cirrus remained. Even later in the day, it was all huge puffy cumulus clouds shadowed with violet.

Warmer and cirrus

1/5/12, 12:30 pm, gazing south

Lots of gauzy cirrus clouds in a cerulean sky on Thursday, January 5th just after noon. These delicate, icy layers are high in the atmosphere and it seems like a miracle that we can even see them. All those tiny ice crystals aligned on the winds 20,000 feet above us.


A high in the low 50's made the day seem balmy after the past days of chill. The cycle of cold and warm fronts running up the Eastern US coast continues.

Last day of the frigid front

Today's low was 17 degrees F according to Weather Underground, but the thermometer on the back porch read 12 when the dogs went out (briefly) at 5:15 am. The temperature will only go up for the rest of the day. Winter is here for the moment but the warmer temperatures of fall/spring are forecast for the rest of the week. 


A warm front moving into Central Virginia and displacing a cold front causes interesting cloud formations. This one was in the south just before 5 pm, a few minutes before sunset. Lots of layers here including cirrus, altostratus and altocumulus. Looks like a muddy gray curtain closing over the sky.

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.