The northerly winds were carrying high cirrus and contrails down towards the coast this morning. They have brought colder air, as forecast yesterday. This gave us our first frost of the season. The feel and even the sounds of the grass underfoot have a relationship with the direction the air is moving.
The natural Navigation: The Right Course, Naturally
The First Frost
01 December 2009 by Tristan Gooley
Three Winds
12 June 2009 by Tristan Gooley
I took this picture a week ago. It shows the lower fair-weather cumulus clouds against the upper cirrus clouds. It is not at all unusual to watch the lower clouds and upper clouds move in different directions and to feel a third wind direction on your face at the same time.
Contrails and Continents
23 April 2009 by Tristan Gooley
This morning’s sun was a strong enough clue, but if we wanted to know which way was southeast then these aircraft contrails are pointing the way to the continent.
It looks like a particularly busy morning for aircraft, but this is just a reflection of atmospheric conditions. The hydrogen-rich jet fuel has mixed with oxygen, reacted in the engines and formed, among lots of other lovely and not so lovely things, water. In certain temperatures and humidity levels this water freezes into ice crystals. The high cirrus clouds that we normally see are also composed entirely of ice.
The length of time that a contrail survives depends on the humidity, if the air is dry it will sublimate away, but if saturated they will last as long as other cirrus clouds.
A Smorgasbord of Clouds
29 September 2008 by Tristan Gooley
Tonight’s early evening sky is a feast of cloud types. Cumulus, passing low and darkened by the shade, perhaps the last of the fair-weather clouds for a bit. Higher there is cirrus, cirrostratus and altostratus all heralding the approaching warm front. Thrown in for a bonus there are some contrails from aircraft heading to and from the continent.
Welcome to the home of natural navigation on the Internet.
Natural navigation is the art of being able to find your way solely by using nature. It encompasses using the sun, moon, stars, weather, water, land, sea, plants and animals.
The Natural Navigator is the school set up by Tristan Gooley to research and teach natural navigation. It is also the title of his book on the subject.
If you would like to know more about natural navigation you can browse the website, read about Tristan’s natural navigation book, or listen to a BBC Radio 4 interview with Tristan.
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