August 16, 2014

Today and yesterday have been hot and muggy.

Yesterday, August 15th, was in the 70s with over 80% humidity.
The sky to the West was interesting:

The glowing spot is the sun. Even though there were lots of clouds, I knew it wouldn't rain - not based on science, but a feeling; just a feeling. Looks like we had a few different kinds of clouds yesterday; Altocumulus in the middle-left side merging into some Altostratus (the ones covering the sun) and then lower in the frame Stratocumulus (the dark gray line of clouds) and are those some Pannus clouds at the very bottom? I can't be sure. Anyone care to weigh in?

The sky to the East was almost clear. I didn't take a picture of it, sadly, so you can't see the contrast. Wind was from the Northeast.

Today, I did a better job of taking pictures of the entire sky. It was hotter (mid-80s and 70% humidity), but not quite as muggy until the evening. Now it is actually very dark outside and it's raining. The following pictures were taken just 20 minutes earlier:

 

I think what this might be is a Cumulonimbus cloud, because there is a clear edge to the rain cloud, also radar suggests that it is a singular spot. Otherwise, I might think it was a Nimbostratus, but those tend to take over an entire sky.