‘Weather’ Or Not Ready, Charlie’s Camera Takes It In

This past Thursday I was going to Valley Bagel in Allamuchy to get my breakfast. It is a beautiful day! I first stop at Town Hall to see what is going on and decide then and there that I am going to take a nice ride on one of my “Looking For Stuff” trips. When I open the door to depart I look west and, “WOW, looks like we are going to get a storm!” and I yell back to those in the building. As for me, I am now on a mission and head down to Nykun’s Farm to get some photos. I always like these scenarios of bright sun, clear blue sky with a delineated black squall line coming in! But I had no idea what I was in store for until I arrived on site!

FORWORD ABOUT PHOTOS

The images above and below are a mere shell of the original views I witnessed when I arrived at this site off Alphano Road in Independence Township. The dark sky looked all the more menacing as it formed the perfect BLACK backdrop, contrasting all the BLAZING objects and highlighted and showcased by direct unfiltered sun rays! The old saying, “A picture speaks a thousand words!” is not applicable here, only because, there are not enough words to accurately describe what I witnessed – I missed a once in a lifetime photo by literally one minute!

Now I am racing down Alphano Road to get to this particular site with its clear unobstructed panorama of the mountain overlooking the cornfields. Arriving there I can’t believe the sight I am beholding, all the while making a wide arcing right turn into the lane, stopping my car, lowering my driver’s side window, picking up my camera on the passenger seat and then beginning to photograph! The time on my first photo was 12:12 p.m. and the next four came at 12:13.

The photos cover the dark cloud front with the front edge of those dark clouds featuring a narrow thin band of wispy high clouds which extended towards me, ending, just directly over where my car was and beyond that was the sun and a deep blue cloudless sky! SO, by the time I began taking photos, those wispy thin clouds had just reached the sun, diminishing its rays, just enough to produce my photo scenes.

CONTINUING ON

I am going to head over to the Hope Great Meadows Road Scenic Overlook. Folks, it is less than a mile down the road to where Alphano Road meets Rt. 46 and when I reach Rt. 46, it is raining! OK, the cloud photos are done; I guess I will head up to Sipley Road in Blairstown and check out the Paulinskill for wildlife. I arrive there at 12:34 and it has stopped raining. As I drive slowly along the Paulinskill I notice a couple of times sun rays are popping in and out, sneaking into the panorama. By the time I am turning onto Gwinnup Road at 12:40 I am looking across a farm field and in the distance is a clear blue sky backdrop over the mountains.

My meandering continued and I was heading up into the DWWGNRA (Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area). Going up through Millbrook Village it was clear, however as I made my way up along Old Mine Road driving along the Delaware River I again began to see clouds coming up over the mountains. Guess this was just one of those days with several fronts passing over our area.

The above scenario of great contrasts reminds me of a day I experienced years ago down at Merrill Creek, when visiting the intake tower area. There I also witnessed a bright sun, dark blue sky with a snow squall approaching. Kind of a funny situation, when looking left over the reservoir it is bright sun and blue sky and looking right it is dark clouds with snow squalls and bands going from the clouds down to the main dam in the distance! That sounds like another Photo of the Week article!