Weather Lookout Points: Solitüde, Flensburg Fjord

Between Germany and Denmark is the Flensburg Fjord (Flensburger Förde). This is a long stretched and curved bay similar to a Scandinavian fjord. It belongs to the Baltic Sea. The Fjord ends in the famous town of Flensburg, which was sometimes a Danish and sometimes a German town. There are also famous tourist spots there as Glücksburg, a small city, and Holnis, a peninsula.

The area is frequented by tourists and sailors a lot and is also a favorite place for painters. A lot of people come from Berlin in the summer. On the other side, in Denmark, there are three little islands, “The Ochseninseln”. Unlike the flat “Nordfriesland” on the west side, the surroundings of the Fjord make a more England-like landscape with its green hills and many woods.

The Fjord is also a great place for weather-watching and photography. There are many viewpoints in Flensburg, on the Danish Coastline or at the top end of the Holnis Peninsula where there is a steep bank (visitors be careful!). It’s also a great place for watching birds or sunsets.

The destinations on the German side along the Flensburg-Fjord are connected by a highway, the “Nordstraße”. There are more fantastic lookout points in Langballig and Habernis.

However it isn’t necessary to do a long car ride, there are also great places within the city-limits of Flensburg: One example is the “Solitüde”, a beach and a quarter of Mürwik on the north-east side of Flensburg. It’s very popular among the inhabitants of Flensburg. Since a long time, there is also a restaurant and a small shipping pear. It’s great for swimming as long as are not so many jellyfish around.

But even more, it’s a great place for photography. It’s worth to visit the place all time of the year. Particularly, if the tourists are gone there is a unique atmosphere.

The shore consists of a beach and some meadows. Since I can remember there is a group of trees standing there. They never grew very big. They remind me always of a certain Tarkovsky-Film.

The place is an example of something which had been mentioned before: If you do weather-photography or video it’s always good to have good lookout points in mind, perhaps do an inventory of interesting places in a notebook, with their specific conditions. The Solitüde-Beach in Flensburg is a good example. It is quickly accessible and its a great backdrop. When I was there I always had been watching “great dramas” in the sky. Mostly if the wind is coming in from the North-West, it can be an interesting place.

There is wind most of the time. Weather is often changing quickly here and you have often completely different conditions within a few hours. However, it’s less extreme as on the west side of Germany’s Schleswig-Holstein with the Northern-Sea.

Contrast and color are also different most of the time as on the west-coast but there are many variations in atmospheres. The color of the Fjord’s water also changes all the time.

Even there is no tide on the Baltic-Seaside, water levels are changing too since if there is the wind coming in from the east-side it presses the water into the Fjord. Sometimes there is even flooding in the harbor of Flensburg.

If you do weather-pictures, it is useful to keep a list of landmarks and significant objects like these trees. It adds to the pictures if it’s not only clouds and some meadow and you could do a series over the years. The images with the trees below are an example.





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by Waldmeister Categories: Photography Tips And Tricks, Stormchasing, Travel Tip, Uncategorized, Weather lookout point, WindTags: , , , , , , ,

PURPLE LIGHT

 

Approximately 15 minutes after sunset there is sometimes a phenomenon called “Purpur Licht” in German (Purple Light). This is not the same as the “afterglow” where clouds are illuminated by the sun in a red light. Purple light is a physical phenomenon and created by dust particles high up in the atmosphere, for example, Sahara dust.

It needs two different kinds of reflections in the atmosphere to let us see the purple light. The observer sees a red light and a blue light. These two sources are getting mixed by our eyes and in our brain and we see a purple light.

October-November evenings are often a good time for purple light when the sky is clear. There are various conditions responsible for purple light. For example, pressure, wind, or what kind of dust particles are in the air are factors.

Sometimes it’s not exactly clear what the reason for this phenomenon is when the purple light is very intense but the eruption of a volcano or a bushfire could increase the number of particles in the atmosphere. The legendary paintings of romantic painter W. Turner with the memorable red sky are perhaps influenced by real intense purple light and afterglow due to volcanic activity.

 

 

Photography of purple light is easy. Mostly you need a place where you have no obstacle like high buildings or trees in the west. Always good to have the camera on a tripod since the eye is a bit tricked: the sky looks brighter as it is. I was going for a jog when I saw too late that this could be a very interesting sunset, thus my equipment wasn’t appropriate for the situation. Sometimes you could rest your camera on a stone or on the edge of a wall but here I was in the middle of some fields. I didn’t want to have a high ISO thus the result has its limits but demonstrates what purple light is. If you use photoshop or another post-pro software careful use of saturation could underline the purple light effect.




 

For a better effect, it is also worth to check an astronomical calendar and look out for an evening with a clear sky when Venus or Jupiter is visible in the west or even better a planet and the crescent moon having a rendezvous in the sky.

Sometimes also clouds in the stratosphere could create an intense “red sky phenomenon”. This time however it wasn’t stratospheric clouds or volcanic ash it was simply a few warm days with a clear sky during the Indian summer in October.

by Waldmeister Categories: Photography Tips And Tricks, Uncategorized

Indian Summer And Blue October Sky, October 14, 2017

New temperature records were reached between October 11-17, 2017 in Eastern Germany. There was a long-lasting period of warm dry weather as in the same time Ireland and England got hit by devastating Hurricane Ophelia.

Even there are a few new extreme weather patterns the warm weather in autumn, however, is a normal phenomenon called “Indian Summer”. A term coined in Northern America it became synonymous with the time of colored trees and warm temperatures after the first cold days in autumn. In Middle Europe often a long-lasting high-pressure system is responsible for these periods of stable warm weather. However, due to the time of the year, it’s often accompanied by mist in the morning hours.

In the alpine region, the warm temperatures can be also created by the “Foehn“. There is also another term “Golden October” when the sun shines still bright and most of all we see a brilliant blue sky.

The sky is particularly impressing when going into the Alps where the sky is even bluer. The still strong sunlight bathes the mountains in a warm colored light.

This is a good time for photographers. The October sky is great for intense colors and even the days are already much shorter there are enough hours of sunshine.

The following pictures were taken at the south-side of the “Wetterstein-Mountains” in the Leutasch valley. The most famous mountain of the Wetterstein mountain is the “Zugspitze” near Garmisch. The Leutasch valley in Austria is less crowded and a great hiking area. One trail leads to the “Wettersteinhütte”, a cozy mountain cabin. Up there, there is a great panorama of mountains on all sides at a height of 1720 meters.

/a>Stock photography by Peter Engelmann at Alamy

Hikers love October because you have this spectacular distant view. The air is not so hot and humid as in summer and you can look very far. From the cabin (The “Wettersteinhütte”) the glaciers of the Tuxer Alpen (Tyrol) were visible that day. Morning hours are often the best time, thus it’s good to start the trip very early.





In the afternoon there are soon long shadows. Strong contrast is then the challenge for the photographer. Here HDR techniques could be useful. The best thing is to shoot in RAW-Mode to have a couple of options later.

An interesting phenomenon is the dynamic of the temperature during this season and type of October weather in the Alps: In the sunshine, it can be warm like in the summer. If you walk on a trail in bright sunshine it can be hot and you’ll start to sweat. However as soon as you descend into the shadows in the valley you feel an instant drop in temperature. And it doesn’t take long to get cold.

Sometimes pockets of warm air can still be felt or there is a sudden drop in temperature. Therefore hikers and photographers need to be equipped with clothes both for warm temperatures and colder temperatures. Nights can be really cold. Indian summer is a tricky thing – it feels like summer but it isn’t.

by Waldmeister Categories: Autumn, Seasons, Travel TipTags: , , , , ,

September 13, 2017, Storm Sebastian

Germany was hit on September 13, 2017 by a deadly windstorm. “Sebastian”. The storm did a lot of damage in Northern Germany and killed three people. Also Southern Germany was affected by the storm. In Upper Bavaria the alps could be seen very clearly. T

his was similar like the “Foehn-Effect” but not necessarily the same like the “Foehn-Effect”. The “Foehn” is a dry wind similar to the “Santa-Ana” wind, the “Foehn-Effect” on the East side of the Scottish Highlands or The “Chinook”. It occurs when moist air is rising on one side of the mountains and turns into warm downslope winds on the other side. Often it is the southern side of the alps where rain clouds are climbing.

Then it can become suddenly very warm in the valleys and the countryside adjacent to the mountains on the northern side. It could be also vice versa and then you have warm weather for example in the Tessin and a lot of rain on the Northern side of the alps.





The “Foehn-Effect” can be dramatic in itself. With temperatures climbing very fast there is a sudden danger of avalanches in the alps in the winter. Also, the “Foehn” is held responsible for health and mental problems. Sometimes when the traffic for example in Munich feels crazy, drivers doing weird things the “Foehn” is said to be the culprit.

In this situation, it was basically that the windstorm came from the Southwest. In Southern-Germany there wasn’t so much rain but there was no dust thus the Alps appeared closer as they are. The next day the weather calmed down but in some areas, there were still train delays due to Sebastian.

The windstorm was predicted but it is still a challenge for weather-services to predict the exact path of a storm. On a much minor scale, it was a bit like with “Irma” which took a slightly different path of destruction. It will be a task for the future to develop even more detailed systems for weather-warnings to prevent tragic incidents as it happened due to this windstorm.

The extreme weather events in 2017 raised again the question if the weather is becoming more extreme and yes, it seems true to a certain extent. It will be especially difficult also in the future to do precise nowcasts of storms like this one. Therefore it is important that people take precautions when severe weather events like “Sebastian” are announced. One important rule is to not go into the woods.

If possible driving should be reduced and people should be on alert when driving on rural roads with a lot of trees on both sides. Usually, windstorms in Europe do not destroy whole buildings so unlike the hurricanes people are safe when staying at home. “Sebastian” was the first windstorm of autumn 2017 and likely more storm systems will follow in Europe.

Storms happen between October and December but there is also often this “Foehn-Effect” in Bavaria or a longer lasting high-pressure system in Middle Europe. When this happens people speak of a “Golden October” due to the colors of the leaves. The “Foehn-Effect” is a chance for photographers in the alpine regions to take spectacular pictures but need sometimes a bit of experience due to the light conditions.

There is often a very bright light during daytime and in the evening the days quickly become shorter. Upper Bavaria, for example, offers many excellent viewpoints like the Hohen Peissenberg where there is an exceptional sight of the Alps.

 

 

by Waldmeister Categories: Autumn, Seasons, Severe Weather, WindstormTags: