Sunday 16th March 2025

As Deyzi Bailey set off on a trip to Sicily, Italy, her mother, Paula Bailey (Member 63,436), instructed her to remember to take photos of any interesting clouds she came across. Deyzi spotted, from the window seat of her flight, this cavum feature in a layer of Stratocumulus stratiformis cloud. Appearing as a hole cut out of a cloud layer, a cavum is formed when supercooled droplets begin to freeze in one region of the cloud. This sets off a chain reaction of freezing that spreads outwards in a widening hole as the ice crystals fall below. While cavum are often round or lozenge shaped, Deyzi’s one looks more as if an octopus went skydiving through the cloud.

We’ve no idea how many clouds Deyzi spotted while in Sicily, as promised to her mother. This cavum feature she photographed on the flight back home to England might suggest a bit of last-minute cloudspotting catch-up.




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