Trying to get a photo of a perfect Kelvin-Helmholtz wave cloud took me two hours yesterday

I saw this amazing, tiny, breaking-wave shaped cloud from my yard in the late afternoon, but by the time I ran inside for my good camera, it had already started to dissolve. I spent the next two hours just staring at that patch of sky, waiting for another one to form, which it never did (I got a blurry phone pic, that's it). Does anyone else have a 'one that got away' cloud photo story?

2 comments

2 Comments

oliviabennett15d ago

My record is three hours staring at a blank patch of sky after a shelf cloud moved through. I was convinced another would form. @leelewis is right about the driving torture, but at least you're moving. I was just a statue on my lawn getting weird looks from the neighbors. The worst part was my phone died after the first hour, so I couldn't even scroll while I waited. Total waste of a perfectly good afternoon.

leelewis16d ago

Honestly, the worst for me is when you see a perfect formation, but you're driving. You can't pull over fast enough on a busy road, and you just watch it slide away in the rearview mirror. It feels like a special kind of torture, knowing you had a clear shot for a few seconds but your hands were tied. Makes you think about keeping a cheap point-and-shoot in the glove box, just in case. Those missed chances stick with you way longer than the photos you actually get to take.