August Pics

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Great photo of Garcia

Don't recall seeing it before

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Hatchlings in the mailbox 

Yesterday, Emily Farrington captured pictures of the Lee Fire when that cold front hit. The wind switched hard out of the north, which shoved the fire away from Highway 64 and Meeker, good news there, but the bad news is the south flank is now tearing towards northern Garfield County.

This morning, the smoke in places like Rifle and Parachute is brutal, but even more jaw-dropping is the fire behavior. It looks like a nuke went off. The fire was burning so hot and so intense it punched up one of the most impressive pyrocumulus clouds I’ve ever seen. That beast of a cloud no doubt altered the microclimate right around the fire.

Here’s what’s going on:

Pyrocumulus core: The fire’s heat column is violently lifting moisture, ash, and particulates, creating the turbulent, bumpy cloud base you see. That’s the “cauliflower” texture, full of convection and vertical mixing.

Transition to laminar layers: As the updraft punches higher, it eventually encounters a more stable atmospheric layer where vertical motion is restricted. Instead of bubbling, the rising plume spreads laterally, forming smooth, lens-like or stacked “cap” clouds.

Stable wave dynamics: In some cases, the fire’s plume actually generates gravity waves in the atmosphere, which can organize the upper part of the cloud into smooth, laminar decks. These are similar to lenticular clouds over mountains, except here, the “mountain” is a column of fire-heated air.

Moisture source: The smoother layers are condensed water vapor from both the fire’s own combustion moisture and the background humidity at that altitude.

In short, the “cauliflower” below is all chaos and violent convection, while the smooth, layered look above is the plume running into a stable lid that reshapes it into laminar, stacked caps.

my daughter after catching Willies signed hat at the end of his show last night...

Back of Stringtwang's head and his wife at a concert in Nederland seven years ago. I think JGB was playing. 

Hackberry Emperor(ess) 

Couple Canadian icons.... Silver Eagle "Zuma" and the CN Tower 

Ian Turner photo.  

Ian's got a Flicker page but I can't find the link. 

Beautiful owl.

Here some pictures from our road trip out to Montana and back this past week and half:

Billy Strings in Missoula:

After Missoula, we spent a couple nights camping up in the Bitterroots right near the Idaho border.  Dog loved playing in the river:

After that, we drove down Hwy 93 into Idaho along the Salmon River.

Came back through Eastern Oregon where we camped up in the Ochocos and checked out the Painted Hills:

killer

Fantastic trip Ken. My daughter and I went to the Painted Hills in June and completely baked in 100 degrees.

I'm guessing not your first rodeo in the area. We enjoyed hiking in Sheep's Rock and pints at 1188 in John Day.

Looks like a great trip and hope you enjoy Eugene tomorrow 

>>>>pints at 1188 in John Day

Yep.  Stopped for beers and lunch.  I have been to John Day before, but this was my first time doing Hwy 26 from Ontario to John Day.  Nice drive, although some of the farm towns along the first part of the route were a bit depressing.   It was like seeing a ghost town form in slow motion.   And that was the first time I did the Salmon River drive from the pass on the Montana border down to the Sawtooths.  Beautiful country, especially that stretch from Clayton to Sunbeam.

 You going to Eugene? 

Sadly not. But we're having FOMO from our decision 

That's a smile to keep in our hearts.