Unusual Cloud Formation creates a Feathery Presence in Blue of Sky

My description of an ‘Unusual Cloud Formation creates a Feathery Presence in Blue of Sky’ springs from another one of those nearly perfect summer days spent up at my fire tower a couple of seasons ago.

Many of those days are in fact pristine and perfect with skies of unspeakable blue broken only by the occasional wisps, curls and unusual shapes of clouds such as the one you see in the photo accompanying today’s post.

This one stood out all by itself though, lazily adrift against the blue of its background, and formed into a feathery presence that just ached for a picture of it to be taken. My wife was happy to oblige that request and deserves the credit for this one.

A Feathery Presence in Blue of Sky - Click to Enlarge

The entire purpose of my work up there every summer of course is focused on watching  both land and sky for signs of smoke columns heralding the potential outbreak of a wildfire, and the sky itself for any onset of cloud and weather patterns building up into lightning generators that can start those kinds of fires.

And given the sheer vastness of the land base and sky domain I regularly pay attention to, it’s not uncommon to see a multitude of different cloud and weather patterns or series of individual storms playing out their unique ferocity across the palette of those huge landscapes I survey in my watching.

Sometimes one of those same storms will envelop the mountain ridge where I’m located, and if there’s any lightning at all in those storms as they approach my position you can be sure I’ve relocated myself back into the cabin protected by lightning rods and copper cables anchored to ground.

But it’s the days of blue like this one that often offer up the kinds of images you see in today’s photo, and in their beauty form both the contrast and the balance to the entire experience of fire and cloud-watching from a mountaintop.

So if another unusual cloud formation creates a feathery presence in blue of sky next summer, I promise I’ll try to capture that image as well to share with you.