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Want to see and photograph some interesting weather?
No problem, just pay a visit to the North Wales coast and you could experience all four seasons in the space of an hour!
No wonder then, that more often than not that's where you'll find me and my wife Liz enjoying a bracing walk by the Irish Sea and taking the odd photo as we stroll along.
It's the unique geography of the area that makes for such interesting and varied conditions.
With warm, moisture laden prevailing winds coming in off the sea, and a range of mountains and hills right next to the coast forcing the air to rise and cool, some spectacular cloud formations can occur during the course of the day.
One of my favourite types of cloud is the lenticular, or wave cloud.
Looking like an alien spaceship, these clouds form in conditions prevalent on the North Wales coast, but even so, they're quite rare.
So imagine my delight when this beauty formed over the headland at Penmaenmawr late one July evening.
With the sun low in the sky to the west, picking out the contours of the hills on the other side of the Conwy estuary from my viewpoint on the West Shore at Llandudno, I was able to capture this lovely image of one of my favourite clouds.
You can also see my time lapse video of these lenticular clouds, photographed from the same location but on a different day, by clicking on the link.
Filename - mountain cloud 14.jpg
Camera - Canon EOS 6D
Lens - 24-105mm zoom @ 96mm
Exposure - 1/125sec @ f11, ISO400
Location - Llandudno West Shore, North Wales
This image - 800x533px JPEG
Conversion - Adobe Lightroom
Comments - Neutral density graduated filter used to control contrast
All content copyright © Howard Litherland 2009-2026 unless otherwise stated.