Cloudrise instead of Sunrise

2018-10-28 20:03:43.000 – Bill Ofsiany, Summit Volunteer

 

The summit was above valley clouds this morning, but clouds were above the summit, too. There was a narrow band of clear sky on the horizon that promised at least a glimpse of the sunrise. Visibility between the two cloud layers was about eighty miles. In the valleys around the summit, the low-level puffy clouds were moving East to fill in between the peaks of the Southern Presidentials. At first, there were more mountains and valleys, but soon the undercast won out. All these clouds were the advance elements of warmer, moister air coming in from the Southwest. As I waited for that peek of sunlight to come over the horizon, the clouds below formed into a moving wave that flowed over Chandler Ridge, behind Ball Crag and poured into the Great Gulf, to disappear into the slightly drier air. About this time, clouds formed in place over the summits of Madison and Adams. The wave cloud, moving at the speed of a car, quickly moved up to the observation deck, first blowing over the summit as a wisp, then reducing visibility to zero. It took a minute or two longer for the wave to reach the headwall of the Great Gulf and Mt. Jefferson, but that too vanished into the cloud. That peek of sunlight, never happened.
Sunrise before the storm The sunrise before the storm moved in, winds peaked at 102 mph

 

Bill Ofsiany, Summit Volunteer

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