Moroni against the Clouds

One benefit of retirement is that if you see a potential photo op not too far away, you can hop in the car and get there in time to take a picture. Other than the July downpour that about flooded us out, it has been quite a dry summer with a counterclockwise low weather system spinning off the California coast for the last 3 weeks and a great mound of high pressure over New Mexico, barring the usual monsoon pattern.

Monsoons need two ingredients; moisture which at low levels comes from summer fronts sweeping down the plains and then through the central mountain chain into the Rio Grande valley, and at high levels from the Gulf of Mexico and the Pacific; and some mechanism to make the air rise and form the big cumulus clouds typical of New Mexico this time of the year. This mechanism comes from the sun heating the air near the ground coupled with impulses of weather energy coming through the state.

One such impulse arrived about noon yesterday, building huge clouds over the mountains, so I went over to the temple to see if I could get a couple of pictures of the temple with the clouds in the background. It only took about 15 minutes and the impulse was off to the east, with the clouds collapsing, but I did get a telephoto of Moroni bidding good-bye to the latest monsoon effort.

The temple is closed on Monday, but the gate to the parking area was open, so it did provide an opportunity to get a few nice pictures.