Interior Skies in June

15 June 2012
11:09

Sunset at	12:43 AM	in direction	344°	North-northwest
Sunrise at	3:00 AM	in direction	16°	North-northeast

Civil Twilight all day

I have taken many photos with my new digital camera, trying to capture the complexity of interior cloud formations - without complete success.  I need to read the manual that is on the disk that came with the camera.  There is a +/- symbol which I used to try to modulate the amount of light feeding into the camera, but the effect didn't change it the way I'd hoped.  The LCD message stated  "tracking" was enabled as I set that option on and off - not quite what I was expecting.

Adding perspective

Still, I am sharing a few of the better photos of the amazing skies as fronts move in and out of the Interior.  Probably no camera can capture the depth, variation and sheer beauty of the sky and mountains in the distance as I see it, but I feel certain my can capture the image more truly than what I have done.

The photo at the right is without magnification, but gives perspective to the distances, and captures the cloud cover directly overhead.  Often a grey blanket of cloud lies directly Fairbanks as it snuggles in the crook of The Chena River's arm on one side and the hills to the north on the other.  The grey is edged by blue sky and white clouds.  The zoom image below provides more of the detail that my eye actually sees, the images that enthrall me.

Flat bottom clouds sitting like foam atop a cup of coffee

Layers of earth and sky

Interior skies often have bands of thin grey across the horizon, perhaps the same grey blanket that will flow over head leaving only the edges visible.  But the stratification is often as pronounced as the photo to the right reflects.  The contrasting bands are enchanting.  First the band of boreal forest extending from the city across Tanana Valley Flats provides the foundation.  Then a thin band of cloud and mist, just visible above the trees, often appears.  If we are lucky, as I was with this photo, one band is the Alaska Range itself. Then a few more layers of dark flat clouds in the foreground crisscrossing the cumulus in the back ground.  Behind the thunderheads, deep, wide white silk that appear to touch the stratosphere.

The following photo was taken after the front had moved through and there was a break in the rain.  The colors can become brighter and the sky bluer when grey, flat clouds are not directly overhead.  Finally, the last photo catches the brilliance of the sky in midday sun while cumulus clouds begin to build toward the next series of rain showers.  

The Alaska Range clear looking across the Tanana Valley Flats

A friend wisely notes I am a sky freak.  How can you be anything but one who embraces the sky when living here?

In between storms