The day had started off cloudy, but it was the kind of pall that I was used to, coming from the foggy land of San Francisco. We talked of camping here, but a distant ledge beckoned a perfect high-angle viewpoint, a beautiful spot for our first night in the backcountry. And the skies looked like they would cooperate, with the sun glowing behind a growing haze, giving a dream-like look to the surrounding tundra.
A few hours later, the sheets began to pour down as we had only begun to slog up the plateau we’d seen from a distance. Mud streamed between my fingers as I slipped up the hillside, two steps forward and one step back.
How could we have known the storm would come up so quickly? With a better eye for the clouds above, I could have found a spot to pitch the tent that didn’t require such muddy trudges.
Those high, hazy clouds, known as altostratus, are usually innocent in themselves. But a sky-smothering haze can be a forewarning of storms following less than half a day behind, bringing with them a continuous rainy front. Knowing this might have made me drag out the tent stakes much earlier
Even by watching the changing features of gentle-seeming white puffs that appear on a bluebird day, a hiker can tap into upcoming weather. The puffy clouds, called cumulus clouds, can pump up like air mattresses, transforming from mild-mannered fluff into leering thunderstorms. By spotting the shape of the blossoming cloud, a savvy strider can even predict the direction that these shape-changing clouds will dump
Whether heading out on a multi-day trip or stepping out for a single night, you could benefit by knowing a bit about the weather. A new Rough Guide publication – the first that features science – might help backpackers prepare for anything the sky throws at them, and can give readers a peek into the inner workings of weather.
The Rough Guide to Weather, by Robert Henson, starts out with the ingredients of weather around the world. I have loved reading about the things I see in the sky and hear on weather reports and learning how they work -- the inner workings of the infamous El Nino and the spurt of water spouts are just two of the things that I've learned about. Henson, a contributing editor of Weatherwise magazine, gives readers hints about how to read forecasts, as well as providing background on global climate change.
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