What’s This? No. 16
Our next What’s This? challenge materialized on December 4, 2013. Name it to win nature notoriety and $5 off any of my outings or workshops. Enter using the comments section below. (Fear not – I don’t publish incorrect answers.) Here are the rest of the What’s This? contests.
Added at 6:40 p.m. (with a bonus What’s This? below): Okay, that was easier than most of my challenges. Yep, clouds at sunset from a Boeing 737 flying at 37,020 feet at 624 mph somewhere over Minnesota, where the outside air temperature was -72F. (Nobody managed to get those details.) Dave Spier was first on this one. Willem Leenstra was actually first on this one. But check out some of the comments below. Sara Backer takes her customary creativity prize, and a few other creative erroneous responses include “Sastrugi,” “ripples of sand under water,” and this gem: “Wind-driven skim ice on a large body of water. Reckon the Inuit have a name for it (or ten), but I call it wind-driven skim ice.”
Okay, here’s a bonus What’s This? (I’ve climbed each one.) Name them. (Hint: Folks have named Rainier, Hood, Baker, Jefferson and St. Helens. It’s one of those, plus one not yet mentioned.)
Adams and Hood? No wait it is Bacherlor and Shasta.
Clever, Jeffrey! 🙂
Oops, sorry. Willem was actually first to get this one!
Antisana and Cotapaxi?
Geesh, I was too slow. I was going to say Altocumulus Stratiformis!
That is I’ve looked at clouds from both sides not,
from win and lose but still somehow,
It’s clouds illusions I recall..
I really don’t know
clouds at all. Joni Mitchell
Is one of the mountains Denali?
Hey, they look a lot like Mt. St. Helens and Mt. Rainier. Did you climb up and ski down?
Hood and Jefferson?
Ooh, I know you’re in the Cascades… Mount Hood and Mount Rainier (I’m awful with distances–is that too close?) or Mount Hood and Mount St. Helens? Enjoy your West Coast sojourn!
Mountains Baker and Rainier. Congratulations on climbing them both.
Hi Bryan,
This is morning (or evening) light on clouds viewed from an airplane above the cloud layer. One of my favorite sights when traveling. I always get a window seat and keep my nose pressed to the window.
My best,
Judy
It looks like cloud cover from aloft out the window of an aircraft.
Cloud cover from above (in an airplane I would guess). Cindy Senning
looks like ice and snow to me with many rows of altocumulus clouds
Instead of your usual brilliantly focused photos, you mistakenly posted a drop shot—that is, a blurry shot of the carpet you stand upon: a nylon twist-weave carpet made of a mix of wool, cotton, and hemp. I believe this color is called “barley”. (I have always wanted the job of inventing color names for stuff.)
A field of clouds seen from the air, is my guess. I have myself marveled at such a view.
Looks like a mackeral sky to me …………….
Cirrocumulus clouds?!
Picture of the clouds from above?
Above the clouds, looks like to me. I don’t know the meteorlogical name of those kind of clouds, but would “heavenly” do?
It looks like the sun’s rays hitting a cloud formation as seen from an airplane window!
a cloud layer of altocumulus clouds that make a mackerel sky
Clouds photographed from an airplane.
It looks like sun on the “tops” of clouds as seen from a plane.
stratus cloud layer from 35,000 feet.
cloud tops – altocumulus undulatus
Altocumulus clouds.
Steve Allen
cirrocumulus clouds? piling up a bit because of upswept land downwind?
I’ve looked at clouds from both sides now,
but still somehow,
It’s cloud’s illusions,
I recall
I think it’s some kind of unusual or unnatural cloud formation.