EPOD - a service of USRA

The Earth Science Picture of the Day (EPOD) highlights the diverse processes and phenomena which shape our planet and our lives. EPOD will collect and archive photos, imagery, graphics, and artwork with short explanatory
captions and links exemplifying features within the Earth system. The
community is invited to contribute digital imagery, short captions and
relevant links.


Winter’s Black and White — and Gray — World

January 27, 2023

RayB_epod_slcapsnow424c_01jan23 (003)

RayB_epod_muryparksnow459c_03jan23 (003)

Photographer: Ray Boren

Summary Author: Ray Boren

Storminess and repetitive snow-shoveling kept me home most of the time,
but during a few breaks in the weather I felt compelled to see what all
that snow was doing. I was surprised by how desaturated the urban world
around me seemed, as demonstrated in the two photographs here. And to
be clear: These are COLOR photographs. The first, taken on New Year’s
Day, January 1, 2023, is of a tree-lined promenade that encircles the
Utah State Capitol in Salt Lake City. Strips of fresh snow, instead
of springtime cherry blossoms, line the trees, and a man can be seen
walking away, disappearing around a curve in wispy fog. A second image,
taken on the third day of the weather event, January 3, 2023, features
a calm, reflective pond fed by Little Cottonwood Creek, in Salt
Lake City, in the middle of the Salt Lake Valley.

Seeing the world “ in black and white” has come to imply a narrow
perspective. But the lack of color, as we perceive it with limited
human eyes, can represent both reality and an aesthetic choice.
Ansel Adams, the famed exponent of black and white photography,
noted this, and used the gradations between black and white to express
his appreciation for the grays in his images — and in life. “Our lives
at times seem a study in contrast,” he said, “love and hate, birth and
death, right and wrong … everything seen in absolutes of black and
white. Too often we are not aware that it is the shades of gray that
add depth and meaning to the starkness of those extremes.”

Plentiful rain turned to water-heavy snow as the new year, 2023,
debuted where I live, on the Rocky Mountains’ western margin. Snow
piled up over several bleak mid-winter days, as low blankets of cloud
smothered the landscape. The U.S. National Weather Service reported
that an atmospheric river — sometimes called a “Pineapple Express”
— was flowing from the tropics across the Pacific Ocean, aiming its
potent moisture first at coastal California, which experienced
flooding. The flow surged inland across the Sierra Nevada Range and
North America’s Great Basin before slamming into Utah’s Wasatch
Mountains (and ski resorts). It’s a heck of a way to run a historic
drought, which has been afflicting the West for two decades, according
to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.


Salt Lake City, Utah Coordinates: 40.7608, -111.8910


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More...

Cryosphere Links

* Guide to Frost
* What is the Cryosphere?
* Bentley Snow Crystals
* Glaciers of the World
* Ice, Snow, and Glaciers: The Water Cycle
* The National Snow and Ice Data Center Google Earth Images
* Snow and Ice Crystals

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Earth Science Picture of the Day is a service of the Universities
Space Research Association.

https://epod.usra.edu

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