Weathercatch: April showers - and oh, but those clouds!

March and April are known for producing dramatic skies over Eastern Washington, and this year is a prime example.

What an assortment of clouds over our heads. White, puffy and somersaulting wisps against a blue slate. Or dark, crashing waves and billowing towers. Some days they switch back and forth as though Mother Nature can’t decide which weather pattern she prefers.

Spring is a battleground season when winter’s lingering cold clashes with summer’s approaching warmth. Resulting instability in the atmosphere mixed with precipitation creates an array of weather conditions and cloud formations.

But how? This time of year, the warming sun is rising higher in the sky. During the day, the sun’s rays heat pockets of warm air just above the ground. Because warm air is lighter and less dense than the surrounding air, it rises into the atmosphere, accumulating water vapor and expands. The ascending channel of air then cools and condenses into tiny water droplets or ice crystals to form a cloud.

Whether the cloud is small or large, thick or wispy, smooth or lumpy depends on a number of factors, including the land topography, the amount of force that propels the air upward and the varying temperatures the air passes through in the atmosphere. High-elevation winds are also a factor, and it just so happens that March and April are the windiest months of the year in our region.

This updraft process, known as convection, hardly occurs during winter because the sun doesn’t produce enough heat to warm the air near the ground. It’s during spring that the lifting mechanism acts somewhat like a cloud-making machine.

So if you’re thinking our skies seem amplified, you’re right. It’s peak season for all kinds of intriguing cloud formations. Social media has been lit up with springtime photographs taken in our region, like the one featured with this column.

As we’ve written before, there’s lots of beauty in clouds if we take time to look skyward every now and then. Here in the Inland Northwest, we all have a good view.

Nic Loyd is a meteorologist in Washington state. Linda Weiford is a writer in Moscow, Idaho, who’s also a weather geek.