Viento Sur

In October and November, it's very typical here to get strong winds coming from the south blowing warm African air over the Iberian peninsula. The Spaniards call it viento sur (south wind), and there is a mythology similar to that of full moons where the wind from the south makes odd people just a little more crazy. I have a love/hate relationship with viento sur. On the one hand, it provides pleasant temperate weather (20ºC this week!) to hold Old Man Winter at bay for a little longer. It also generates some fantastic cloud textures ripe for photography. However, I live on the sixth floor with little protection from the wind, so it makes the shutters on our windows vibrate very loudly at night. We bought our house in late September 2005, and that October we were seriously questioning our decision as we sat awake at night listening to our building whistle and vibrate. The viento sur keeps both my camera and window shutters moving.

Last week I set up my DSLR to capture a timelapse of the clouds to see them swirl, but they were blowing by so fast that it wasn't worth publishing the video.

Here are some photos I captured with my iPhone camera on my midday walk today.

You may remember these street lights from last week.

See how the striations zigzag back and forth? Odd!

Crazy November skies!