Lenticular Clouds

Today, like many recent days was a good day for photography. Bright sunny skies, moderate temperature and some nice snow cover. My neighbour, Stu Hamilton and I had planned to go out late in the afternoon with the hope of getting a nice sunset on the Three Sisters. Our planned destination was the Bow River Flats, a summer favourite where I have taken many shots of Canmore’s signature peaks and their reflections in this tranquil corner of the Bow River. Today, we hoped to get some nice, late afternoon light striking the back side of the Three Sisters as the sun set.

When I picked up Stu, I looked across the valley and noticed some amazing cloud formations over Grotto Mountain. I later determined that these formations are known as Lenticular Clouds, common to mountain areas but not something I have seen often. Lenticular clouds, technically known as altocumulus standing lenticularis, are stationary lens-shaped clouds that form at high altitudes, normally aligned at right-angles to the wind direction. Where stable moist air flows over a mountain or a range of mountains, a series of large-scale standing waves may form on the downwind side. Lenticular clouds have been mistaken for UFOs (or “visual cover” for UFOs) because these clouds have a characteristic lens appearance and smooth saucer-like shape.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, so before I write a whole lot more, here’s what I saw sitting stationary above Grotto Mountain.

The light at the Bow River Flats was not as good as hoped, but there were good opportunities to photograph more Lenticular clouds, so I was quite happy with that. We were also pleased to see that the river was not frozen, despite the still water in this area. The chance for some reflections! The following pictures are shown in the sequence they were taken, showing how the light changed (and the cloud colour) as time progressed.

The next picture was taken shortly after 4:00 PM, looking toward the southeast.  Note that the light striking the cloud is primarily yellow, it’s still early.

The second picture in this sequence was taken about 20 minutes later, at roughly 4:30 PM. The sun is coming from the right, brightly illuminating one corner of the large cloud bank. In the distance, also on the right is the summit of Mount Lougheed and in the foreground, a frozen section of the Bow River. The intensity of the yellow colour on the cloud has increased as the sun gets lower in the sky.

Just ten minutes later, I got the final two shots of the sequence. The first one features a beautiful reflection in the river and with the sun getting quite low in the sky, much warmer colour.

This final picture is a panorama, composed from four shots taken to encompass the entire scene I was seeing.

This was about as good as the light would get and a good time to call it a day. I did get a picture of the Three Sisters, my original mission but it did not begin to compare to the pictures I have posted today. We concluded that the sun was being somewhat obstructed by clouds to the west and not reaching the nearby mountains as we had hoped. The good news, of course is that we found a good alternative. The Three Sisters will have to await  another day. I did get some good close-ups of the flowing water and ice a little downstream and I plan to share those in a subsequent post.

That’s it for today.