Why I Moved to New Mexico

[Editor's Note:  This really is not a "Cutler Park Chronicles" story, and these are not images from Cutler Park.  But at the moment, I don't have another blog ready to go (I'm workin' on it), and these images and the story behind them can't wait, so they have to go here.]




We had an amazing visual display at sunset this evening, but it wasn't in the western sky.  And there's a story to it . . .

The day started like this, at dawn (6:20a):

Not a bad start.  But the best was yet to come.

This afternoon we were out running errands, and could see a giant storm cloud/system forming in the north and moving south toward us.  Of course I didn't have my camera with me -- guess I'll have to take it everywhere now! -- so by the time we got home and I got outside, the leading edge of the clouds was almost directly overhead.  You can't really tell how LARGE it was, but here's how it looked as it moved from north to south (left to right), as I looked east at 5:04p:

To give you a sense of the size of this storm, the mountain you see at the bottom center of the image is 10 miles away and is 5,000 feet higher than the surrounding terrain.

Eventually, the system moved over us, but we were on the western edge, so it was sunny on our side, and we got no rain.  The mountain 10 miles to the east on the other side of the river, however, did get the rain (6:02p):

 The system kept moving south and east, leaving the mountain cloaked in a lot of gloomy, uninteresting clouds (6:31p): 

So after dinner, I repaired to my computer to process the afternoon's images.  Eventually, about 8:20p, just after sunset (which was at 8:15), I came up for air and looked out the back window.  OMG!

The storm system had moved south and east, past Albuquerque, and the setting sun, now below the horizon, was still shining on the storm clouds in the southeast.  Here's how the sky looked in the west (woo-hoo!):

I grabbed the camera, put on my shoes, and ran out the front door, across the road (8:23pm) . . .

 to the hill about 100 yards north of our house to get a better view (8:24):
 

The light was going fast, so I shot as fast as I could, juggling my settings and checking my histograms continuously.  It was like an explosion in the sky . . .

8:25pm:
 

8:26pm:

By 8:27pm, it was all over, except for the western edge of the cloud formation still catching light from the sun, being watched by the waxing moon:

From the time I looked out the back window to the time it was essentially over, seven minutes had passed.  But wasn't it glorious!


This is why I came here.