Wheat Fields Burning, Forming Cumulus Clouds-Time-lapse

For the last few weeks, farmers have been finishing their wheat harvest and burning the stubble to prepare the field for the next crop (the value and safety of this practice is debated), mostly soybeans around here. On this hot, humid day I saw some huge beautiful cumulonimbus clouds forming as a result of these burning fields. By the time I was able to get home and get out to our farm to set up for shooting, the clouds were not as impressive. I was impressed, though by the number of fields burning I was able to get, just in this frame, in this hour and a half period. At the top of some of these plumes of smoke, you can see the condensation, which is where they turn fluffy and white, before it cools and drops a bit then evaporates again. This time-lapse video was made last week using my Canon PowerShot S3 IS and Granite Bay Time-lapse software with my old Dell laptop. I took 1400 pics at a rate of 1 picture every 4 seconds. A larger higher definition version can be see here: http://www.webiocosm.com/timelapse/timelapsevideos/wheatfield/wheatfields.htm

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• time-lapse
• time
• lapse
• wheat
• field
• burn
• cloud
• evaporate

[carot2003]

Helpful and cool. Thanks..

[webiocosm]

@lionsforlyons - Thanks. I failed to follow up on your comment initially and just now caught it while looking through other comments that I had saved. I looked up the pyrocumulus entry on wikipedia and I agree with the term. Interestingly, the entry has some very nice pics and notes that "The World Meteorological Organization doesn't recognize pyrocumulus or pyrocumulonimbus as distinct cloud types, but rather classifies them respectively as cumulus (mediocris or congestus) and cumulonimbus."