The Longest Shadows in the U.S.?
Among the other exceptional aspects of the Pacific Northwest, perhaps, just perhaps, we have the longest shadows in the U.S.
From what? Our huge volcanic peaks.
During the past few weeks I have been viewing some of the early morning imagery from the NOAA/NWS GOES-West weather satellite, which has far higher resolution sensors than previous generation satellites. And the shadows one can see are amazing.
Consider yesterday, July 21. Here are the GOES visible images at 5:51 and 5:56 AM. Wow.
In the first picture, the shadow of Mount Rainer extends at least all the way to the Columbia River, 92 miles (149 km) away. Other major volcanic peaks, such as Adams and Hood also project impressive shadows.
Our mountains are actually well-situated to produce long shadows..they are very high compared to their surroundings and there is a major low area (eastern WA) to their east.
The Seattle PanoCam at 5:30 AM actually shows the shadow from the side.
We clearly possess world-class mountain shadows, although other countries and regions do claim the big-shadow mantle (see below). Rainier is higher than Mount Teide by a lot.
Are the volcanic shadows the longest observed over the Northwest? I don't think so.
What is even higher than our volcanic peaks? Clouds. And clouds can project amazing shadow.
Here is an example from July 19th at 5:51 AM. High cirrus clouds over eastern Washington are projecting shadows that extended into western Washington. Amazing. We are talking about shadows that are at least 160 miles long.
This morning the shadow action is not so good, with low clouds surging into western Washington and Oregon (see below). And there is something else: wildfire smoke has entered the region, mainly from fires over California. But more about that in a future blog.
From what? Our huge volcanic peaks.
Shadow of Mountain Rainier by Troy Mason through a Creative Commons License
During the past few weeks I have been viewing some of the early morning imagery from the NOAA/NWS GOES-West weather satellite, which has far higher resolution sensors than previous generation satellites. And the shadows one can see are amazing.
Consider yesterday, July 21. Here are the GOES visible images at 5:51 and 5:56 AM. Wow.
In the first picture, the shadow of Mount Rainer extends at least all the way to the Columbia River, 92 miles (149 km) away. Other major volcanic peaks, such as Adams and Hood also project impressive shadows.
Our mountains are actually well-situated to produce long shadows..they are very high compared to their surroundings and there is a major low area (eastern WA) to their east.
The Seattle PanoCam at 5:30 AM actually shows the shadow from the side.
We clearly possess world-class mountain shadows, although other countries and regions do claim the big-shadow mantle (see below). Rainier is higher than Mount Teide by a lot.
What is even higher than our volcanic peaks? Clouds. And clouds can project amazing shadow.
Here is an example from July 19th at 5:51 AM. High cirrus clouds over eastern Washington are projecting shadows that extended into western Washington. Amazing. We are talking about shadows that are at least 160 miles long.
This morning the shadow action is not so good, with low clouds surging into western Washington and Oregon (see below). And there is something else: wildfire smoke has entered the region, mainly from fires over California. But more about that in a future blog.
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