Here’s an interesting example of how a mountain can influence the flow of clouds and weather around it. Longs Peak is just over 14,000 feet high and is the highest peak in the area. Look how it is affecting the clouds and air currents that would otherwise be moving in a relatively straight west-to-east path over the Rockies.
That’s not the mountain’s doing. It’s GOD’S! 😉
_________
Oh, snap!! You mean I flunked Earth Science 101 AGAIN!??
Impressive…my high school was in a mountain…the weather changes in an instant
___________
It’s those changes that make the mountains so fascinating to me. In their scale and dynamism, they offer a spectacular, highly visible demonstration of the earth at work. And it’s there 24/7 for anyone who’ll stop to look.
That whole area ‘makes its own weather’. I was backpacking out on the west flank of Long’s Peak very early and the area was covered in an ethereal fog. It was very surreal.
________
That’s always been my favorite part of the whole system — the play of light and cloud around the peaks and through the forest. It’s constantly changing, never the same way twice, and at any moment you might be treated to a fleeting but absolutely breathtaking scene. You have to pause and absorb it through every pore, imprint it on the “emulsion of the mind” as someone once said, because you’ll never do it justice on film and words will never adequately describe it.