A Gathering Storm

Now that you are thoroughly confused about where we are at the moment, I thought I'd toss in a relatively current posting. As you probably have figured out, I try to keep ahead of things with my posting so that I have a queue of posts ready to go even if our schedule prevents me from a daily updates. At the moment, I'm about two weeks ahead, which means that what you see today is about two weeks out-of-date (rather than the 2-4 months out-of-date that you've been seeing... we'll get back to that soon). This is, I think, part of the big storm and cold weather that hit the US in late October. This is how it arrived in the high desert.

I was out running an errand and one the way home, I saw this coming in from the west. Between me and the hills in the distance is a section of graded land that the wind is whipping into a dust storm.

At a different location, the dust is gone and I have a clear view of the western horizon. Here, the clouds are most impressive.

Today is very windy with significant gusts blowing me and the camera about. Even leaning on the car only helps a little. The only way to get a sharp image is to used an higher ISO and faster shutter speed.

The last time I recall seeing such dramatic clouds was in the desert near Broken Hill. I suppose the wide vistas and land that heats and cools quickly contributes to the drama.

I think we are still in the city limits of Albuquerque, but I'm not sure. We are about a 30 minute drive north and west from the center of town. Clearly, this city has grown enormously since I visits here regularly back in the '80's. The Petroglyphs you saw from our last house sit in the area are closer to town than where I stand to take these images.