Feeling partly cloudy today.....

Starting the day off with a good photo opportunity makes for a good day.

Once again, the humidity and light clouds offered up yet another 'good morning' shot for me and the dogs.  Add to that the fact that my camera does something really neat with sun that is filtered thru trees and bushes.  It creates a ray that shoots straight up from the sun...whether it is simply something in the lens, or the possibility that it is simply invisible to the human eye, is beyond my comprehension, but it is so cool....

The fun part was that later in the day, a storm passed by us and we were able to see the clouds growing like mousse in your hand.  The sun blasting from the late afternoon angle was heating the clouds' steam, creating 30-40 thousand foot high clouds.

As we watched them grow and heard the thunder, the clouds eventually began to spurt 'lava flows' on the top....hail being born!  The storm produced nickel-sized hail for communities south of our home and we were able to see nature's ice machine in action!

The photos which follow are in order as the clouds grew.

This was the first indication that a strong storm was brewing...clouds being pushed different directions, creating what made me think of an arm of the storm 'flexing its muscle'.

The beginning upper clouds.

The top is beginning to 'boil'

What looks like four fingers reaching over the top toward me is actually four fast-moving boil-overs of hail being produced.  You could actually watch the boilover which moved way faster than if you were just watching storm clouds billow.  I wish I had a video camera for that one!

Finally, the upper level winds came along and started to blow the tops off the clouds, which created an airbrush effect.  It was kind of like the wind was going to blow the sand off the sidewalks.

It was an afternoon to remember.  The only thing missing was the accidental capture of a lightning bolt...but that will happen one day!

Of course it will probably be a picture taken of me, standing out in the storm to get pictures, getting "taser'd" by Mother Nature as she says, "Hey dummy!  Don't ya know enough to get in out of the rain?"

Zap!