Along the Maine Coast
Last week, I took a quick trip to the coast of Maine. This eastern part of the Maine Coast is also known as "Downeast Maine". The town of Lubec, Maine (location at the blue dot below) it is not just the easternmost part of Maine, but Lubec is also the easternmost part of the US.
While the primary goal of this trip was to take a 3-day class on night sky and Milky Way photography, I also took some daytime and sunset pictures. So here are a few of my favorites from Lubec, Maine.
Since Lubec is on the Canada border, I would also spend a few hours in the Canadian province of New Brunswick. It is the home of Roosevelt Campobello International Park, where President Franklin D. Roosevelt and his family spent summer vacations on their beloved Campobello Island over a period of 56 years. Here you will find some colorful lighthouses and fishing boats.
I will show my nighttime and Milky Way pictures from Maine in a future blog post. Storms in the Northern Plains
For the last week in June, I spent a few days doing storm photography in the northern part of the country. Specifically, in the eastern half of both Wyoming and Montana. With the advent of new technology such as GPS, radar on your phones and social media, the roads around tornadoes and severe storms have become increasingly crowded with storm chasers over the last couple of decades...particularly in the Southern Plains in and close to the month of May. However, during late June in the Northern Plains, you can still see no more than a few chasers on the same storm. Below is a brief summary of my tour and my favorite pictures: DAY 1: Northeast Wyoming
Afternoon storms developed over the Thunder Basin National Grassland. The fields of yellow seen above are known as sweet clover, which was a common sight in many of the grasslands in this part of the country. A stronger storm would later develop near the Montana/Wyoming border north of Devils Tower National Monument. This was a rotating thunderstorm that would go on to produce an EF-1 tornado about 10 minutes after this picture was taken north of Hulett, Wyoming.
It was the only tornado producer in the entire nation that day. There was great satisfaction to be one of the few people to see the best looking thunderstorm in the nation. After the tornado lifted, the core of the storm moved on to the east of Sundance, Wyoming at sunset. It continued to put on a lightning display with the last sunlight of the day hitting the rain shaft.
Day 2: Southeast Montana Another day of storms, though the storms were not quite as photogenic as the day before. Another limiting factor was the road access to best view these storms. As beautiful as the landscape can be in Montana, the main down side is the lack of a good road network, especially paved roads to quickly get in position of where you want to be. I was still able to get in a few good lightning shots, such as this scene from Powder River County in Montana:
Day 3: Central Montana More storms in a part of Montana that I had not in before. Today, I was closer to the mountains. Storms began to form in the afternoon off the higher terrain of the Little Belt Mountains west of Lewistown, Montana. This storm produced a tornado in the distance, about 8-10 miles from my location.
This picture is a good example that helps counter the myth that mountains will protect you from tornadoes from happening. While the added friction from the mountains can sometimes help reduce the chance of a tornado from occurring, mountains cannot prevent it entirely from forming and this picture proves it. The tornado did not last much longer than a couple of minutes and it soon evolved into this shelf cloud as it approached this red barn near Moccasin, Montana.
There would also be a rotating storm near Judith Gap, Montana. Here is a 9 minute time lapse sped up into a little over 1 minute to emphasize the rotation in this storm: You Tube video of a rotating storm near Judith Gap, Montana Day 4: Central Montana It was another day of storms in the same area, but the storms did not produce any tornadoes and overall was not quite as photogenic. The lack of road network to work with was also a hindering factor. However, there was a nice rainbow to end the last day here.
I look forward to doing some more storm photography in this underrated part of the country in future years! Springtime in Arkansas
It is officially the final day of spring. Well, the last day of ASTRONOMICAL spring. Us meteorologists like to simply define spring as March, April and May. This is more aligned with the weather and peoples lifestyles. Instead, astronomers tend to define seasons based on the timing of the equinox. Rather outdated thinking from centuries ago, in my opinion. For example, astronomers define December 19th as "fall", not winter. However, it clearly falls within the coldest 1/4 of the year, which is how I think seasons should be defined. But I digress... Anyway, I thought I would write a quick post to show you some of my favorite pictures taken here in Arkansas during the last 3 months.
And we did see a lot of rain this spring...which means a lot of waterfalls!
Utah Adventure
Earlier this month, I was in one of my favorite states to visit...Utah. I joined up with one of my favorite photographers, James Kay who knows Utah well. Southern Utah is home to some of the wildest American landscapes, both in uniqueness and remoteness. Some of the last places to be mapped in the lower 48 was in Southern Utah. I returned to a few favorites but also visited some new spectacular locations. In 2016, I visited the tallest waterfall in Utah...Calf Creek Falls. On my return visit, I did something a little different. Last time, I captured the entire waterfall. But this time, I decided to focus on the up close scenes with a zoom lens. You can find more scenes like this in my new Nature Up Close Gallery.
The region known as Hole In The Rock Road south of the town of Escalante is home of some of best slot canyons in the world. A slot canyon is a narrow canyon, formed by the wear of water rushing through rock. A slot canyon is significantly deeper than it is wide and in some cases hard to get through the twisty, narrow corridors.
Another adventure came on our hike to Coyote Gulch. For the short approach to Coyote Gulch, we did some class III scrambling over some steep rocks.
I'll admit it was intimidating. Going down is mentally challenging and going up is physically exhausting. We had a rope, a harness and a helmet for extra safety. Once down and up the rock face, I was glad I did it. There is some amazing scenery there, such as Jacob Hamblin Arch and Coyote Natural Bridge.
You can also see some wonders just by looking closely at the ground, such as mud cracks and also something else. These round rocks that crop up in the Navajo Sandstone are known as "moqui marbles". Moqui marbles are small, brownish-black balls composed of iron oxide and sandstone that formed underground when iron minerals precipitated from flowing groundwater. The word Moqui comes from the Hopi Tribe. The Hopi were previously known as the Moqui Indians, named so by the early Spaniards, until their name was officially changed to Hopi in the early 1900s.
Back in 1996, the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument was created for protection. However, in 2017, President Trump ordered the monument's size be reduced by nearly 47%. Conservation and outdoor recreation groups have filed suit to block any reduction in the national monument, arguing that a president has no legal authority to shrink a national monument once it is created. If the proposal goes through, the land taken out of the monument would still be open to the public. However, it would then be subject to energy development. The battle continues to be fought in court so uncertainty remains on the future status of this wonderful national monument.
Utah is well-known for its arches. I visited a couple of them south of the town of Escalante, but I also made a brief visit to Arches National Park and a small section of Canyonlands National Park. I had already seen and photographed the iconic Delicate Arch and Mesa Arch. Being a weekend in peak season, I opted for a backcountry hike with more solitude to the lesser seen Tower Arch.
For some history, I also made a stop to The Great Gallery, located in a small remote part of Canyonlands National Park that is about 30 miles from the nearest paved road followed by a 3 mile hike. These petroglyphs and pictographs have been dated to between 400 A.D. and 1100 A.D.
On the long dirt road drive to the Great Gallery, I passed through some unnamed sand dunes. Somewhat surprised by this finding, I made a note of it on my GPS in case I wanted to come back. After my Great Gallery hike, the sun was getting low and I wanted to return to this spot for the last sunlight of the day. Low sunlight on sand dunes is an amazing sight!
Even though these dunes are relatively small, they can appear especially impressive with a zoom lens. This turned out to be one of my favorite moments while I was in Utah. The Olympic Coast
Back in March, I visited Olympic National Park in Washington. Located in the far northwest tip of the Lower 48, it is a national park with a lot of variety. With its wet climate, it is home to a lot of waterfalls and lush temperate rainforests. In the higher elevations of Olympic, there are also a lot of beautiful snow capped mountains with alpine wildflowers in the summer. However, for this trip, I decided to focus on the beaches. It is home to some of the most remote beaches in the lower 48, with some of the beaches accessible only by several miles of hiking.
One such location, in the picture above, is Cape Aleva. I hiked over 3 miles in the dark to get to this spot at dawn. When visiting a beach, one thing you will notice is how quickly the landscape changes with the tide levels. The two pictures below were taken 7 minutes apart. Notice how the rocks in the picture on the right that was 7 minutes later are becoming submerged.
These deer seemed to be caught off guard by higher waves moving in with the incoming tide.
Tides are caused by the gravity of both the moon and the sun “pulling” at the water in the sea. Because the Earth is constantly turning, the “pull” of gravity affects different places as each day goes on. The tidal force causes the Earth's water to bulge out on the side closest to the moon and the side farthest from the moon. These "bulges" of water are high tides. Because of the rate of how the Earth rotates, coastal areas experience two high tides and two low tides every 24 hours and 50 minutes. High tides occur 12 hours and 25 minutes apart. For more, here is a YouTube video about that: Speaking of the moon, I was visiting during the full moon cycle. With the sky being unusually clear for this time of the year, I decided to take advantage of this and hike out for the setting moon at Shi Shi Beach and the sea stacks at Point Of The Arches. With 2 consecutive pre-dawn hikes, I came away with success.
Notice the band of purple underneath the pink in the sky. This is found when the sky is clear and you look in the opposite direction of the sun before a sunrise or after a sunset. The darker band of purple that appears is the Earth's shadow. I have heard this phenomenon referred to as the "Belt Of Venus" and also as the "Twilight Wedge". Here is another example of it just above the horizon:
There are also a lot of fun beach scenes where the sky is not involved, here are a few of my favorites.
Those are sea anemones that can be best found in the tide pools at low tide. These up-close scenes can be found in my new "Nature Up Close" gallery that I recently created. Some of you regular visitors to my website may have noticed that I have done some re-organizing of my galleries. My non-Arkansas pictures have been divided up into 6 different scene categories, including my "Nature Up Close" gallery. You can find that here.
|
