Tag Archives: lightning

Life in A Cloud

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For those of you new to the blog you may not know that The Institute, the source of the many excellent but interesting posts you receive daily, sits high in the Rocky Mountains in Northern Colorado. Not Andes high or Himalayan high, but moderately high at just under 6500′.

So what, you might ask, if you were the rude type. Well, it means that at this altitude, 6500′, we get a lot more weather than folks living lower than us. What might be a rain cloud high in the sky to them may be a raging hail storm at this elevation. They’re looking at the bottom of a cloud and don’t see what’s going on inside it. Or a brisk wind down on the flats might be 70 mph up here and that will scatter your lawn chairs all over hell and back.

Lately we’ve been getting a lot of “fronts” moving in which brings clouds over and around us and often below us, usually all at the same time. I say fronts because we rarely get “backs” unless the clouds move backwards for some reason, which it does sometimes for reasons known only to itself. So I guess that could be considered a “back”.

The Institute buildings sit prominently on a point just below the summit of a world-famous mountain, it, the mountain not the Institute, being featured on many maps and even Google Earth, jutting out into space and consequently into the weather whenever it occurs. Visualize all the many imposing Schloss’s or castles you have seen in magazines, movies, and your imagination along with craggy rustic buildings set in high lonely places and mix them together and you have an idea of what The Institute aspires to look like and fails dismally at, and you have an idea of what we look like.

But getting back to the fronts we spoke of earlier. When they bring the clouds in to envelope us in misty darkness, they are loaded to the very gills with water in the form of suspended droplets completely filling the inside of that cloud. There is simply no room left for anything else. Not even lightning. It is packed tight. When the cloud moves back and forth due to some climatic reason it bangs into whatever happens to be there, like say, The Institute, and as it collides with our buildings the water inside the cloud just adheres to them. Sticks to the sides, saturating everything with impunity, and creates problems that are different than one gets in a rainstorm. The water doesn’t just fall downward and run down the sides like rain, it instantly saturates everything, walls, roof, under the eaves, into every single nook and cranny, sort of like running your house through a car wash. Think grabbing your house by its roof and plunging it into a vat of water until bubbles come out of its little chimney and you have some idea of what it’s like to live in a cloud.

Now before you think that that is a totally bad thing, it’s not. In fact it’s kind of cool. If you’ve done all your proper caulking and waterproofing that is. You can stay inside and light a fire in the fireplace without fear of accidentally burning down the forest from errant embers. You can read, pull your chair right up to the window and watch the cloud move back and forth. Drink hot tea. Think about stuff you don’t normally take time out to think about. Ponder, some. Call your neighbors and say “Hey, you got cloud?” They almost always do if you do. It’s a time to relax and say “Well I don’t have to mow the lawn today.” and just enjoy the weather.

There are other good parts too, like when the clouds move in and when they move out. If the movement happens at either end of the day, like sunrise in the shot above, you get a bonus of seeing morning in a different way. That alone makes up for some of the crap side of living in a cloud. Shortly after that image was taken the cloud moved backwards up the hill and we got wet. But for a brief moment you got to see paradise. Living in a cloud isn’t always a bad thing.

The Anvil and The Hammer

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Last eve I passed beside a blacksmith’s door
And heard the anvil ring the vesper chime;
When looking in, I saw upon the floor,
Old hammers worn with beating years of time.*

This poem comes to mind whenever I see this picture. It was taken on a stormy, stormy day on the way to Hovenweep. There was thunder and wind and the light had a deep reddish tinge to it that I hadn’t seen before. Lightning was there too, but it was too fast for my shutter, so I have to imagine it again each time I view  this image.

Storms in this part of the country don’t last all that long. They tend to be intense but over soon. They’re not like the slow-moving deep-soaking storms back in the Midwest where they last for hours. Those can be heavy but unless they’re tornado type thunderstorms they seem manageable. These western storms are not manageable. They break on you in moments with a fierceness that is almost personal and care little for the aftermath.

That is part of the allure of these big open spaces. The land is big, the views are big, the weather bigger still. This hugeness with all its wonders and dangers and intensity becomes part of you. You can move away but you cannot forget it.

The anvil rings loudest for those who listen.

* From The Anvil Of God’s Word by John Clifford

Monsoon Storm

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When it comes to weather, living in the mountains can be a real plus. The monsoon season is on us and with it an almost daily storm that would be a weather event in most places but here just kind of makes the neighbors look out the window.

The other night was a prime example. A storm blew up out of the northwest and came roaring down the Obenchain draw heading for the plains. Its path took it directly over the house and as the house is kind of up in the air here on the mountainside we had a bird’s eye view of it as it went by. It was what old people called a ‘doozy’. If you’re young and reading this “why aren’t you doing your homework instead of fooling around on the computer?”  but before you go Google doozy and it’ll explain it to you.

This was an amazing storm. Lightning was flashing overhead, thunder was a continuous roar, and the whole thing felt like it was happening twenty feet above the roof. As always happens the storm moved out onto the plains and began to dump its rain in earnest. This was real old testament stuff and I wouldn’t doubt that there were a few folks apologizing very sincerely for any past transgressions they may have had. As we live a pure and simple life up here we didn’t have to bother with any of that and just took in the view. That guy on the bottom end of that lightning bolt probably wishes he had just said no though. But we all make choices. Maybe it helped him see the light so to speak.

It rained real hard, stirred up all the weather warning people, flash flood procedures were enacted, folks got wet. Dogs howled. Children cried. People drove through those places they tell you not to drive through when there’s flooding and everyone acted pretty much like you expected them to when things get really weird. Life kind of slowed down to a crawl until Mother Nature figured we’d had enough then it stopped. I like these storms. I don’t particularly want to get struck by lightning or washed on down the creek but I like them anyway. This is what it looked like. Stay dry.

Nanny McFree

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We are in the middle of our annual monsoon season here in Colorado. What that means is everyday around 2 to 3 o’clock in the afternoon, although it sometimes happens sooner, or sometimes later depending on the whims of Mother Nature, it clouds up, the skies get dark, thunder rolls in from the west and it rains. Little gentle rains where things slowly get wet, the air smells fresh and moist and you sit by the open door and drink a nice, slow, hot cup of tea as the entire experience washes over you. A Camelot kind of rain.

On the other hand when some poor misbegotten soul has done something to irritate Mother Nature we get something else entirely. Instead of the Camelot rains we love and wait for, we get the full wrath of weather that you only get in the high mountains. Torrential rains, 30 -40 -50 mph winds that drive the rain against everything in its path with the power of a force 5 hurricane. And if you’ve done something particularly heinous you can have hail, which as you know from your experience of being alive, is really hard rain packed into the size of a BB all the way up to size of a steamer trunk. This falls from the sky and breaks things. That is bad when that happens. Stay indoors. Then because Mother Nature rarely holds a grudge, the storm passes, the sun comes out to shine it golden rays down upon you, the bluebirds return and all is right with the world again.

So what? you say. Well first that’s kind of rude and you might just keep an eye on the skies above in case Mother Nature heard you. The monsoon affects everyone and everything here in the mountains. Even the Mountain Goats on Mt Evans. They and anyone else unlucky enough or unfortunate enough, to be above tree line when one of these big storms hit are in imminent danger of being struck by lightning. Lightning is a whole bunch of electricity, like all the D-cells and other batteries you have in your house, even the ones in your smoke alarms, all wired together at one time, all stuffed into a very narrow place in the sky and when it’s good  and ready it shoots down to the ground and incinerates what ever it hits. This can have adverse effects on your ability to remain alive. This is called “Being Struck By Lightning” or as we know it “Bad Luck.” Every year people are struck by lightning and killed. Like totally. It’s over and that’s that. This is unfortunate and not a laughing matter but it is a fact.

But you rarely see Mountain Goats struck and killed. Why is that we wondered. If anyone is at risk it should be them. They live above tree line, they stay out in the weather even when they shouldn’t and they do not carry any life insurance, nevermind health and accident. So how does that work then.

It turns out that over time, at least over the last 8000 years since the world was created, they have evolved a system that helps them stay alive and well during inclement weather. First the big ones run like the devil and hide. But if you look at your average herd of Mountain Goats you’ll see a large percentage of them are young ones, the kids. Like most kids they are not smart enough to come in out of the rain and so, and here’s where it gets cool, the mother goats got together and devised a plan where everyday one of the mothers is chosen to watch over the kids and if it looks like it’s going to rain,  or especially lightning, she gathers them up into a bunch and stuffs them in the crevices between the rocks and guards them until the storm passes. Nobody gets struck by lightning, they all live and the group survives. Neat, right? Well the mother of the day is called a nanny. Just like Nanny McFree in the image above.

This was documented yesterday as a couple of us trudged up to the top of Mt Evans, all 14,265′ of her, to stand there in the rain and lightning with our tinfoil hats on, and steel toed boots, to see if this was true. It was.

Whole lot of Joules

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Here at the Institute we get a lot of lightning. Storms come rolling through the valleys sending out lightning and thunder at an incredible rate. This is the view from the observation deck of the main headquarters building here at the Institute and it is a typical sight from a Saturday night storm. This is known as your forked lightning. Other than the fact that forked lightning can cause humongus forest fires we don’t mind it that much.

Storms on other nights generate different amounts and types of lightning, such as a Tuesday night storm will create what ‘s known as Ball lightning. Ball lightning is just what it sounds like, instead of the crisp forked strikes like in the image above, you get lightning in the shape of balls of various sizes that roll along the ground willy-nilly, jumping here and there and generally setting stuff on fire.

Monday is a bad night for lightning. Monday you get what is called Sheet lightning, that is lightning in a sheet form that if it strikes too close to your house will set your bed on fire. Don’t sleep in your bed on Monday nights.

Wednesday nights are ok, we don’t get storms on Wednesday nights.

Friday night lightning is what is referred to as CC lightning, or Cloud to Cloud lightning. This is the party lightning of the celestial electrical power service. It’s on Friday night because that is party night, where folks gather in the out-of-doors for different social events. Softball games, beach parties, mid-night marches on Washington, Ranger talks at National parks, anywhere that people get together in groups of fifty or more for some legitimate reason you’ll find CC lightning. The sound of the thunder you hear is actually the crowd noise of the people watching it. CC lightning is Mother Nature’s answer to the 4th of July.

Thursday is sort of an iffy night for lightning, it’s kind of  a people’s choice deal. You can get Rocket lightning, Bead lightning, Ribbon lightning, or even Staccato lightning. When you check in at the National Center for Lightning Prediction’s website to see what’s on tap lightning-wise there is a box you can check for the type of lightning you prefer. They average the votes and that’s what you get that night. Vote Rocket lightning, very, very cool.

Sunday…..Man, Sunday is the one you got to watch out for. Sunday we get, and I hesitate to even write this down, Dark Lightning. Dark lightning is bad, really, really, really bad. I used three really’s there because it is really, really, really bad. Dark lightning is made up of stuff most of us don’t even know about, stuff like high energy electrons and its evil twin brother, the anti-matter equivalent, positrons. Don’t be fooled by that name there’s nothing positive about them. That’s anti-matter we’re talking about here. You don’t mess with that stuff. Carl Sagan didn’t even mess with that stuff. Chuck Norris wouldn’t mess with that stuff. If anti-matter happens to mix with your matter, parts of you disappear. And you don’t grow it back. When all those high energy electrons and anti-matter equivalent positrons are doing their thing, it causes explosive emissions of terrestrial gamma ray flashes that the scientific community says are faster than normal lightning. Faster than normal lightning! Do you know how fast normal lightning is? Faster than a cat in a taco kitchen, that’s how fast. Faster than a Big Mac in Bill Clinton’s hands. Fast. What makes it even worse is you can’t even see it. Its Dark Lightning.

We have chosen not to participate in any Dark lightning events here at the Institute and I recommend you do the same. It’s not that we’re scared, it’s a safety thing. Make sure to check that box too, the don’t have Dark Lightning events box, when you’re on the National Center for Lightning Prediction’s website. Its right below the people’s choice selection for Tuesday night. And here’s a PSA for all you folks born with a Silver Spoon in your mouth. Stay inside when there’s lightning. Seriously, stay inside.