Since our last "Mammatus, Lenticular & Other Extreme Clouds" article, the good old Nature kept giving the photographers great opportunities for stunning shots. Problem is, great celestial displays are often followed by some nasty storms... which hardly anybody would want to witness firsthand.
We'll start with a "Clouds Beauty Contest". Most sources are listed directly under the photos, though some original credits remain unknown. We mentioned "Clouds Appreciation Society" as a premier destination for cloud-watchers & photographers before, and it remains the "one-stop" website with more and more spectacular submissions every day. Among the other sources of this article, you will see a few examples out of thousands worthy pictures displayed there.
Cloud "Explosions" - Cumulonimbus cloud formations, building up to powerful storms.
It also shows how easy it is to make these shapes by Photoshop. The following series of pictures, though, is definitely real and appeared in Daily Mail. The most unusual ones are "the six-legged sky pig":
(photo by Ian Loxley)
and a "head of the sky dragon":
(photo by Felicity Norman)
Tornados & Wall Clouds
First, the most fantastic picture - the storm structure captured in its entirety, over Red Cloud, Nebraska. The linked page describes the damage that was wreaked by the accompanying tornado.
We are also reminded by the saying on his site that "It's hard to enjoy the fascination of storm chasing when people are getting hurt" (Alan Moller), so the combination of rainbows and tornadoes is really quite symbolic.
More recent shots of tornadoes, unfortunately uncredited:
(original unknown)
Rachel Rusinski took the following two pictures of Midwest storm looming over the plains in the morning. Right place + right time = amazing photography...
The winter is coming. Look up to see the dancing northern lights:
Northern lights over the erupting volcano!
The photo above came from the most fascinating collection of northern lights pictures by Sigurour H. Stefnisson. Make sure to click on this link to enjoy their beauty.
Nacreous Clouds
Nacreous Clouds, or Mother-of-Pearl Clouds are a pretty common sight in the northern countries (like the ones shown here over Norway), when the sun is low on the horizon in December and January. They are also called "polar stratospheric clouds". They are best visible in the early dawn of after dusk, because they reflect sunlight from below the horizon (due to their extreme altitude and curvature of the Earth). They also play a certain role in decreasing the ozone layer by bringing up the gaseous nitric acid and disturbing the delicate cycles of the stratosphere.
Finally something rarely seen and truly strange: Cloud's "Gravity Wave". Time-lapse photography captures a huge rolling huge wave, consisting of smaller clouds. "A gravity wave is... a wave moving through a stable layer of the atmosphere. Think of a rock being thrown into a pond. Ripples or circles migrate from the point the rock hits the water. An up and down motion is created." (Tama, Iowa KCCI-TV webcam on 6 May 2007)
I wanted to say the very same thing as the guy before me did. It's in production for a while already, it looks awesome. I've seen it around at a Belgian track a few times (Zolder), and in that vicinity it also drove in front of me a few weeks back.
That's not a new japanese fetish, or even japanese. It's Macrophilia (giant fetish), known for over 50 years. The miniature trainset is for fantasy of being tiny compared to the woman. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macrophilia
The heart of Tokyo is Ginza? I think you meant Shinjuku. I've lived in Tokyo for three years and I've gone to Ginza maybe twice. Other than that, I think you captured the spirit of Tokyo and Osaka pretty well.
In real life, these places look less brilliant than they appear in pictures. These shots have been enhanced to make everything look more vibrant and glowing.
Tokyo is one of the ugliest cities in the world. All that neon is just garish and the buildings are pretty ugly. It has the worst skyline of any major city in a developed country in the world because it's all unplanned.
It's still an interesting place to live and has many good points (great public transport, relative safety for a major metropolis, good job opportunities), but it's not beautiful.
I wanted to say that the Iron Train that runs from Zouerate to the coast at Nouadhibou, is not the longest train.. There was one in australia measuring 4.8 Miles (7.3Kilometers) And there is another in the United States, i don't remember if the raiload was located in colorado,but it's 4.5 kilometers long. But if you aim for ''Today's Longest Train'' you got that right!
Like all Craters on every planet, (besides maybe the domed craters of mars which are giagantic concretions) they were carved by electricity. That is why they are all circular.
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"Watching clouds & seeing shapes becomes a theme in advertising:"
The pictures are from a french film Le Fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain
http://imdb.com/title/tt0211915/
Look at these photo galleries: http://chamorrobible.org/gpw/gpw-20050129.htm and http://chamorrobible.org/gpw/gpw-20061021.htm
The two photos of the little girl taking pictures of animals in the clouds is from the movie Amelie, not an advert.
Spectacular Mammatus Clouds over Hastings, Nebraska
http://www.hprcc.unl.edu/nebraska/june2004hastings-mammatus.html
great tips, all... thanks, i've adjusted the post.
the gravity wave looks a lot like being under ocean surf. just fantastic!
that second movie isn't Amelie, it's Tideland.
Snopes seems to think it's from Amelie - link
Awesome pictures!
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