A Nedcam change

This is a screenshot of the Indian Peaks Wilderness at sunset Sunday night, from Nederland, Colo. It caught my attention because at first glance I thought it was a whole new mountain view. But if you look again, you’ll see the mountains are only about the lower third of the bright area. The rest is sunlight and clouds.

This camera’s view includes a lot of sky because it’s part of a weather network. And it has a great view of the western sky from its position in Nederland’s St. Anton Highlands. For a sunset view, this camera is one of your best bets.

On an evening last September, I caught this color:

From an elevation of 8,258 feet, the view is enviable. But there have been some changes in the website since I last visited.

The camera no longer offers a static view that refreshes every 60 seconds, as it did in the past. (The view does change, but I’ve yet to figure out the interval.) Disappointed, I almost moved on.

I’m so glad I kept poking around! Now, across the top of the camera view, you’ll see “Webcam Time Lapse Radar.” Choose Time Lapse and you can enlarge the view to full screen, select one of several speeds (still trying to figure out which one), enjoy the changing scene, and pause whenever you want. Quite an improvement. And to think I almost overlooked it because it’s now smaller and on a page with copious amounts of weather data.

The controls in the lower right corner of the Time Lapse view are small, so don’t overlook them. You’ll want to choose a larger size and a slower speed than the default. I’m still trying to figure out the speed setting. Mostly I just pause when I want to see something.

(Also along the top of the image, check out Radar. Many, many fascinating maps of the whole U.S. when you click the little round orange wind icon in the upper right corner. Radar, Temperature, Clouds, New Snow, Thunderstorms, Humidity, Fog, Dust, etc. The entire country is at your fingertips.)

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