Expedition 5280: Blossoms of Light

Thursday, January 3, 2008

Blossoms of Light

This photo is from the Blossoms of Light web site. The scene is even more beautiful in real life.

You know your destined for fun when you're with Brian and Nel!

There's also an art exhibit you can view day or night. Above is one of the pieces.

Nel and I stayed warm in our new down jackets- I am grateful for goose down!

Brian forgot to bring a had and borrowed Nel's scarf. He looked like a total hippie.

This area was a tunnel of red lights.

Brian and Nel had an excellent Sat. evening suggestions: Blossoms of light at the Denver Botanic Gardens. The sight was spectacular! We had special glasses that made the glow of the lights look like snowmen, snowflakes or "New Year". Steve was experimenting with his new camera and took notes from other photographers there. His wish list now includes a monopod.

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A Recent Rare Phenomenon

Last night we were at a local coffee shop with some friends. While sitting by the widow, we noticed that it had unexpectedly begun snowing. A few minutes later we all looked up to notice bright flashes, similar to that from a camera flash reflecting in the window. Since you never see lightning (or hear thunder) during a snow storm we all looked around for the abnoxiously bright flash from someones camera. It was nowhere to be found. Next thing we hear the boom of thunder and immediately car alarms start sounding. At this point we all look outside to see what looks like hail....but its not. It is simply pea sized snowballs that are falling like rocks from the sky. Needless to say, this was the first time any of us had experienced anything like this. The snowballs were not hard but soft...just like snow. The lightning and thunder continued for a while longer, as most everyone who was in the coffee shop either was glued to the windows or went outside for closer inspection. Bethany, who was sitting with our group, said that she had heard something like this happening before and said it was called a "thundersnow storm". Well, it is a true and rare event that is even more rare in a "land locked" state like Colorado. Here is the local newspaper headline from the Rocky Mountain News: "We were enjoying the lights, sights and sounds of a thundersnow that rolled through downtown around 9:30 p.m. And, we didn't make up that word thundersnow, either. It's a real, but rare phenomenon (and very rare in landlocked Colorado), according to a quickie Google search. In the simplest of terms, cold air meets warm air. As those two air masses interact, it causes friction, or a convection (up- and-down movement of air), which if violent enough, can cause lightning and thunder".

If you are still interested, check out the Wikipedia article for it : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thundersnow