A day before the rain arrived.

We have thus far had four days of solid rain. Our first winter rains.

My way to learn the weather patterns, is to always get the advancing clouds on camera, as then I will know what kind of rain is on its way. For example, the deeper the blue of the sky, then the softer the rainfall will be. In contrast, the greyer the color of the sky, then heavy rain such as a storm is on its way. Let me tell you that I prefer the dark blue of the sky, as usually the cloud formations will be astounding. I normally take more than 100 shots of the advancing clouds and in here I will show you a small selection of the clouds.

The wind brought this cloud over the mountain traveling from the left to the right.

And then the cloud almost exploded, as it met an opposite wind.

Two earlier cloud shots below.

This goose came over later in the day.

And finally, I was so glad to get this shot of a hadeda ibis family on their way home.

So yes, the skies can teach us a lot about the weather, and at times it can also come with surprises. Such as this time, as the clouds were the forerunners of a four-day soft rain occurrence. I hope that when I see this in the future, I will immediately recognise it as the wet days that we are having now. Many other hints can also tell a person a lot about the weather, as for instance the direction and the strength of the wind, halos around the sun, the types, levels, and colors of the clouds and their proximity to the mountains.

Insects are also a good indicator of approaching rainfall, as we have streams of black ants entering our house about two or three days prior to the rain. For example, if it will be a short, gentle drizzle that will move off quickly, then only a few ants make their appearance, but three days prior to the rainfall, there were lines of ants entering different parts of our house. We live close to a river and all kinds of things enter our house, such as a big toad that we had to remove from our bathroom.
Such is life.

I hope you enjoyed the pictures and the story.

Photos by Zac Smith. All-Rights-Reserved.

Camera: Canon PowershotSX70HS Bridge camera.

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