Weird! Ominous! Beautiful!

Weird Frontal Cloud Formation

Monday found us on Bull Shoals Lake fishing--first trip out this year for me. Yes, we caught 4 respectable, but not 'keeper' bass.  But fishing is not the subject of this post.


A weather front was approaching from neighboring Oklahoma. We watched clouds slowly move into our area of Arkansas.  "Watching the weather" is a secondary occupation of fishermen, especially on large reservoirs, like Bull Shoals, which impounds over 45,000 acres and 700 miles of shoreline at power pool to 70,000 acres and 1000 shoreline miles at 690 ft. near top of the flood pool. 


Misjudging an approaching storm can lead to an inconvenient drenching, or more disastrous events.  Lightning strikes is very real danger to vessels on the water. Capsizing when the winds stir the water into white-capped waves is another hazard.

Weird Frontal Cloud Formation

However, this front was a very slow-moving storm. We returned to our boat stall about mid-morning.  As we returned home we noticed the looming cloud formations were unusual, not in the tornadic sense, but, well.....weird!


As we crossed Bull Shoals Dam, the clouds appeared as very neat layers, almost as if an artist had painted them! Come to think of it, a Great Artist did 'paint' them!


Because of construction/repair crews (your TARP dollars at work) and other restrictions on the Dam, I could not jump out of the car to capture the moment. I waited until we arrived home to capture the effect. By then the effect was not as dramatic, as the moment we crossed Bull Shoals Dam.

Local media received phone calls, alerting news reporters of the  unusual cloud pattern, and expressing anxiety of impending danger.  Indeed there was a short term weather alert of sky-to-ground lightning but nothing indicative of tornadic activity.


As the clouds passed over us, we received thunder, some lightning, and rain, generally a mundane weather event, except for the CLOUDS!