~Prelude To The Tempest~

~A Violent Beauty~

To witness a sky structure grow and become almost a living breathing thing is very humbling. It all started this afternoon with just a few wispy clouds about an hour before sundown. Seemingly not worth my time to hike up to Sunset Ridge tonight, instead have a good dinner and then rest. But no, the call of the ridge was too strong, beckoning me to get out and bring my camera. This is a waste I thought to myself, but you do need the exercise and it is a fairly warm evening for mid-winter. I get up to the skyline above my home and things were changing, but not dramatically. Still a 15 minutes to go before the sun disappears behind the Tortolitas. Then like magic, the clouds start to swirl into shapes and begin to take some color from the sun. As the sky grows darker and the cloud thicken, they continue morphing into more colorful structures. Like a snake about to strike or a spring ready to violently unwind the sky explodes into twisting and contouring ferocious elegance!

Thanks for looking in on TucsonJim ;o)


A Larger Tempest