Light and Weather

Snow and Sunbeams

Half Dome and sunbeams, winter sunrise, Yosemite NP, CA, USA

Half Dome and sunbeams, winter sunrise, Yosemite NP, California

I’ve felt like a hamster on a wheel lately, running nonstop just to keep up with the most essential tasks. But I finally have a moment to breathe, and time to write a blog post!

I made the photographs here in mid-February, after a weak storm moved through the Sierra. In a common pattern, it rained in Yosemite Valley during most of the storm, but the temperature dropped at the tail-end, leaving a dusting of new snow. At least that’s what I saw on the webcams early that morning. But when I arrived in the west end of the valley at first light, I didn’t find any new snow. Could it have snowed in the east end of the valley (where the webcams are), but not the west end? Sure enough, that’s what happened. The east end of the valley is slightly higher in elevation than the west end, and sometimes that’s enough to create a dusting of snow in the east end while the west end gets only rain.

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Half Dome and Fog

Half Dome above a fog layer at sunrise, Yosemite NP, CA, USA

Half Dome above a fog layer at sunrise, Yosemite NP, California. This is actually two frames from my 50mm lens stitched together, as that lens wasn’t quite wide enough, but my next widest lens (35mm) was too wide.

After photographing the trees in fog I described in this recent post, a few mornings later I went up to Yosemite Valley again as another storm was clearing. I climbed up to a different spot, with a view of Half Dome, and once again saw the valley floor covered in a shallow layer of fog, with trees poking out.

But this time I also saw high clouds, and some mist wrapped around Half Dome. Under those conditions the higher clouds often light up before sunrise, but not this time; probably some clouds farther east, out of sight, blocked that early light. But later, as the sun rose higher, it broke through and backlit the clouds and mist. My favorite moment is shown above, with that backlit mist, and trees poking out of the fog below.

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Trees and Fog

Trees and waves of fog, Yosemite NP, CA, USA

Trees and waves of fog, Yosemite NP, California

On a Sunday morning nine days ago I headed up to Yosemite Valley as a small storm was clearing. This system was on the warm side, so it rained at the valley elevation (around 4,000 feet). But there was still some snow on the ground from previous storms, and rain on top of snow is a fog-generating machine, so I figured there would be lots of fog and mist.

And there was lots of mist when I arrived in the valley. I climbed up to one of my favorite off-the-beaten path viewpoints, thinking to capture a classic Yosemite clearing storm. But when I reached that spot it became apparent that the mist wasn’t wrapping around the cliffs as I’d expected. Instead, I saw a shallow layer of fog covering the length of the Valley floor, with the tops of tall ponderosa pines poking up through the fog layer. Which looked gorgeous.

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Yosemite Snow

Misty sunset from Tunnel View, Yosemite NP, CA, USA

Misty sunset from Tunnel View, Yosemite NP, California

Last Tuesday night a small snowstorm moved through Yosemite. It’s been a dry winter so far, and this was the first significant snow in Yosemite Valley in quite awhile. It also looked like the storm might clear around sunrise, which was good timing.

So Claudia and I rose early Wednesday morning and drove up to the Valley, where we found about four inches of new snow. It was great to see the trees decked out in white, and to feel the snow underfoot.

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Autumn in the Redwoods

Redwood, maple, firs, and sunbeams, northern California, USA

Redwood, maple, firs, and sunbeams, northern California

We had a long, lingering autumn here on the west coast – especially in the Pacific Northwest. On our way up to Oregon in early November, Claudia and I stopped in some redwood groves to check on the fall color. And we found lots of it. It seemed like a good year for color throughout the Northwest, including the far northern corner of California where the biggest redwoods grow. Underneath the redwood canopy, vine maples and big-leaf maples – the same species found on the Olympic Peninsula, and throughout much of Oregon and Washington – can add splashes of color to the forest.

I had long wanted to photograph fall color in the redwoods, but it’s difficult to find the right conditions, especially since the best groves are a nine-hour drive from home. Some years the big-leaf maples just turn brown. And even if they do turn yellow the timing is highly variable. So we felt very lucky to find some good color this year.

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Clearing Tropical Storm

Sunbeams, Half Dome, and Nevada Fall from Glacier Point, Yosemite NP, CA, USA

Sunbeams, Half Dome, and Nevada Fall from Glacier Point, Yosemite NP, California

As the remnants of Tropical Storm Hilary moved through California, I looked for opportunities to photograph interesting weather. I thought we might get thunderstorms, which we did, especially as the first bands of moisture reached our area. But I wasn’t able to find a thunderstorm in the right position to photograph it. We did, however, get three-quarters of an inch of rain at our house from one thunderstorm.

Then, as this large weather system moved off to the north, I realized there might be a chance to photograph a clearing storm Monday morning (August 21st). It looked like the rain would end around sunrise in Yosemite; it was less clear whether the clouds would dissipate enough for the sun to break through that early.

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