You can’t look around when you’re looking up, so we’ve had a look around for you.
If you have cloud news that you think we should include here, please email it to us at: [email protected].
Have you ever felt the need for a more substantial badge than the one you received when you became a member of The Cloud Appreciation Society? Ever felt the need for one that is a little more fancy, a little more showy to tell others of your membership to this most ethereal of societies? Then you will be pleased to hear that we are now selling beautiful new Enamel Member Badges in our Cloud Shop. New members will still get the standard badges when they join but, in due course, we will add an option for them to buy one of these fancy badges at the same time.
Johnn Schroeder of Buffalo, Minnesota spotted this article entitled “Cloud House billows from anassuming Edwardian Home”.
Project architects McBridge Charles Ryan (MCR) have created a ‘cloud’ extension to the original property situated in the Fitzroy North suburb of Melbourne, Australia, which contains a kitchen, dining room and conservatory.
There are some very interesting pictures of both the inside and outside here.
We have decided to do battle with Amazon and all the other online booksellers, as we are now selling copies of all three of our cloud books on the Cloud Shop. The one difference we offer is that you can have the books signed by society founder, Gavin Pretor-Pinney. You can even have his sign it for someone else and include a message of your choice. This makes them the perfect gift for cloudspotters, young and old.
We were recenlty filmed out cloudspotting with Ron Westmass, Cloud Appreciation Society Member Number 4451, for the German TV international arts and culture show, Euromaxx. Click on the image below to watch the clip on the Deutsche Welle website (ours is the first item in the programme):
“That one over there looks a bit like a TV camera”
The WeatherNet desktop calendar is distributed to clients and friends and contains weather related images from keen photographers. For more information and for a chance to have your photograph appear in next year’s calendar, please submit your photos online here. The winning entry will receive £100, with further prizes for all selected photographs. Best of luck!
Two of our members, Dr Alexander Robertson and Daphne Gleadhill recently told us about this giant bird-shaped cloud which had appeared in the south Iceland sky.
The Icelandic Meteorological Office stated that Altocumulus had been noticed in the area during the day, and speculated whether this formation might have resulted from this.
A Cloud Appreciation Society cloud talk, London, 19 May
Cloud Appreciation Society founder, Gavin Pretor-Pinney, is very excited to be giving an illustrated clouds talk at the first ever Words in The Park festival that is taking place over the weekend of 19-20 May in London’s beautiful Holland Park.
The talk will take place in the marquee for Opera Holland Park, which is situated right in the middle of this small and perfectly formed city park. Gavin will be giving a crash course in cloudspotting, showing some of the many different types of cloud formation, as well as showing some of the best clouds that look like things sent in by members of the Cloud Appreciation Society, some of which appear in our new book ‘Clouds That Look Like Things‘.
This will be a great opportunity for London members to get together. Gavin will be around after the talk, and would love to meet any Society members who come up to say hello. He will also be signing copies of all the Cloud Appreciation Society books, which will be available at the event.
Gavin Pretor-Pinney: an illustrated talk about clouds 2.30pm Saturday 19 May
Words in the Park
at Opera Holland Park, Holland Park, London Box Office: 0300 999 1000 (Monday–Friday, 10am–6pm) Book tickets online here…
We are fast approaching a new milestone in the development of the society: 30,000 members. But we have also just past another. The number of people who “like” the Cloud Appreciation Society Facebook Page has just exceeded 10,000. It is always nice to know about fellow cloudspotters so we thought visitors might like an insight into the average age and sex of the people who like the Facebook page. It seems that most likes come from users in the 35-44 age range, with a greater proportion of these being female than male:
Who likes The Cloud Appreciation Society? Our Facebook page demographic graphic
We wish we could give you a similarly fancy graphic of the ages and sexes of the actual members of the society but we are not that sophisitcated.
The Cloud Appreciation Society Facebook page is a good place to find out about our upcoming cloud events, as well as seeing some fantastic cloud images uploaded to the page by Facebook users: Visit the Cloud Appreciation Society Facebook Page…
On Saturday 5 May, we were invited onto BBC Breakfast to chat about the Society’s new book, ‘Clouds That Look Like Things’. The BBC invited viewers to send in thier own photographs of clouds in the shape of things. Amongst the many great photos sent in was a great one of Margaret Thatcher. As is always the case on TV, they had very little time to show them. We could them on the presenter’s little computer screen, and wish they’d been able to show more. Many thanks to any members who took the trouble to send in their images.
Of course, you can always see the latest Clouds that Look Like Things on our gallery pages.
Artists Rob and Nick Carter recently contacted us about their latest body of work. It plays on the transient nature of light and form and, they say, also creates a dialogue about the ephermeral aspect of art. The Carters have created their own coloured clouds which continues their preoccupation with light and colour and is achieved by a unique action photography that captures paint pigment spontaneously thrown into the air, juxtaposed against the blue sky as if it were dancing in space.
This was spotted on the National Geographic Daily News website with a story entitled “NASA Rockets Make Weird Clouds Near Edge of Space”.
The effect is caused as chemicals react with water and oxygen in the atmosphere to create the milky white clouds and were visible to both scientists and public in the clear morning skies along the US Northeast coast.
Amanda Murphy discovered this LP whilst at work. It is by British songwriter Graham de Wilde and is aptly named ‘Clouds’
We haven’t heard it and it’s currently out of print but maybe one to look out for. If you have a copy why not leave a comment and let us know what you think?
Storm Dunlop, the distinguished author and weather photographer – and Cloud Appreciation Society Member No. 0030 – mentioned us in a short piece for Oxford Univeristy Press about the public’s difficulty in remembering the names of clouds. The piece was to mark World Meteorology Day (23 March). How many members of the general public, for instance, can name the cloud shown here on the right? Perhaps, not many.
But for members of the Cloud Appreciation Society, naming these familiar high clouds is a doddle. You can see the answer at the bottom of Storm’s piece. But how many know the name of the optical effects that appear as spots of light on either side of the base of the photograph, and are caused by the sunlight passing through the ice crystals of the clouds (answer here)?
Cloud Appreciation Society member, Peter Kaiser from Vienna sent us this link to stunning indoor clouds that were created by artist Berndnaut Smilde. He uses smoke machines combined with lighting and interior atmospheric conditions along with meticulous experimentation to create these results. He told Gizmag “I wanted to make the image of a typical Dutch raincloud inside a space”.
Musician Brian Spence released his new album On the Mend on January 3rd 2012. We think that the cover photograpy is spectacular. It is an image of crepuscular rays and was taken by Angela Craggs.
Now you can go cloudspotting without getting off the sofa
We have teamed up with our friends at WeatherVideoHD.tv to bring you a beautiful new DVD of stunning time-lapse cloud sequences, which is called ‘A Fantasia for Clouds’. Not only are the clouds relaxing and mesmerising to watch, the time-lapse sped-up photography reveals a great deal about the way that cloud forms develop and mutate. Set to a beautiful musical score, and featuring many rare and unusual formations, the DVD is just what a cloudspotter needs when the sky outside is just a featureless Altostratus or a cloudless blue. Buy ‘A Fantasia for Clouds’ from The Cloud Shop…
Unfortunately, Gavin won't be wearing his 'cloud 9' outfit, complete with fake legs. Sadly, it fell apart after he wore it at a previous talk.
Tomorrow (on Wendesday 7 March) society founder, Gavin Pretor-Pinney, will be giving an illustrated talk about clouds at a literary festival in the Lake District, in the north of England. Part of the Words By The Water festival that is taking place this week in Keswick, Cumbria, the talk will be a guide to spotting clouds. It will teach you to distinguish your Cumulus cloud from your horseshoe vortex cloud, but will also explore one of the greatest pleasures of cloudspotting, finding shapes in the clouds. This aimless pastime was appreciated by one-time Keswick resident, the Romantic poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge: “O! it is pleasant,” he wrote in 1819, “with a heart at ease / Just after sunset, or by moonlight skies, / To make the shifting clouds be what you please”.
Gavin would love to say hello to any cloudspotters who happen to be in the area and free to come along on Wednesday afternoon.
Cloudspotting by Gavin Pretor-Pinney
Wednesday 7 March, 5.15pm
Theatre By The Lake, Lakeside, Keswick, Cumbria, CA12 5DJ.
Ticket price: £7.50
Box Office: 017687 74411
Or go to the Theatre By The Lake website and scroll down to find the talk under “Gavin Pretor-Pinney” to buy a ticket online.
A stunning fog formation on the coast of Florida, US, is our Cloud of the Month for March. This dramatic wave effect made media headlines around the world. Well done to photographer, J.R. Hott, for capturing such a rare and beautiful formation.
You can see the March Cloud of the Month here.
Diana Willcox, Secretary of the Macclesfield Astronimical Society has asked us to let you know about an upcoming talk on Red Sprites. It will take place on Tuesday, April 3rd 2012 at 20.00 at Hulley’s, Astrozeneca in Macclesfield.
The speaker, Peter McLeish. is a multimedia artist, filmmaker and painter from Montreal. He has been involved in collaboration (based on Red Sprites) with American Scientist Walter A Lyons. Peter’s lecture will include a video presentation and footage of this startling phenomenon.
If you would like to attend this talk you should visit the Macclesfield Astronimical Society website to reserve a ticket and find directions.
Tom Benjamin currently has a solo exhibition running at the St Anne’s Gallery in Lewes called “In the Service of Clouds”. Alex Leith of Viva Lewes Magazine says “He’s a great painter, in the impressionist mode, who does all his paintings au naturel. He has developed a style whereby he kneels down to paint so as to get a snail’s eye view of the sky”.
The show started on 25th February and is running until 4th March. You can visit Tom Benjamin’s or the St Anne’s Gallery website for more details.
firstsite is a contemporary art gallery in Colchester. Jes Fernie, Associate Curator of the gallery recently contacted us about their current exhibition, Equivalents. The exhibition, selected by the artist Steven Claydon, contains a series of cloud studies painted by Constable during the 1820s.
We received an email recently from Emily Morus-Jones with a photograph of a cloud in the shape of a heart. Quite a few heart-shaped clouds have been sent in to the society photo gallery over the years, but this one arrived with a particularly poignant story, which is recounted by Emily below. Spotted over Saint Etienne en Devoluy, France, where Emily is working a season as a rep for Ski France, the cloud brought her some comfort following very tragic news:
“Prior to my accepting the job over here, breaking away from my old job, I was divided and in two minds as to what to do. I consulted one of my dearest friends whom I have known since we were both children and who completed a ski season last year in Meribel in the 3 Valleys. He told me that I had to go, and that I would not regret it. One week later he died under incredibly tragic circumstances, (for details please see the following link about the inquest a few days ago into his death) leaving a gap in the universe that will never again be filled and, in my opinion and that of others, leaving the world a far worse off place. As far as I was concerned I no longer had a choice, I had to go.
“Five weeks into my season, I was still in an incredibly fragile state, I still am now. However, I had been doing quite well at just getting on with it, telling myself that he’d kick my arse if he saw me moping all the time. Despite my efforts though, I did find myself being overcome with emotion from time to time. One such occasion I was sitting in one of the cafes on the slopes taking a break after boarding for 3 hours on my own. I was tired which didn’t help and I was depressed because I really just wanted one person who I could go out with and learn from. I kept on thinking about how different it would be if he was there, if he was with me. I found water to be welling up in my eyes so I looked up to the sky in the hope that if anyone saw me they would just assume that it was the sun in my eyes that was making them water. Attached you will find a photo of what I saw, I took two pictures just to make sure I wasn’t tripping or anything. Then, at the exact moment that I saw it, the music in the cafe changed to Pink Floyd, ‘Wish You Were Here’. Now I am generally quite a scientifically minded person, but that day I am convinced that he spoke to me. And even if it was all coincidence, I still found myself getting back on my board and riding like mad for the rest of the day.”
Emily’s story touched a chord with us. It made us think of the 1913 poem, ‘Clouds’, by the British war poet, Rupert Brooks:
They say that the Dead die not, but remain
Near to the rich heirs of their grief and mirth.
I think they ride the calm mid-heaven, as these,
In wise majestic melancholy train,
And watch the moon, and the still-raging seas,
And men, coming and going on the earth.
Cloud Appreciation Society member, H Brown, recently sent us the link to the Met Office publication “Cloud Types for Observers”. This is an extremely good classification source and will be interesting for all cloud enthusiasts.
Our mugs are just back from the printers and they are great. Now you know what to drink your tea from when you are out cloudspotting in the garden.
Go to the Cloud Shop to see our Cloud Appreciation Society mugs here.
We know how all you cloudspotters out there are reluctant to do the washing up because you don’t have tea towels to be proud of. We know what problems this can cause with your friends and partners. Well now that particular impediment to family harmony is no longer. We are proud to introduce in our Cloud Shop none other than the glorious new Cloud Appreciation Society tea towels…
We’ve got a few left of society’s Cloud Calendar, 2012. So, in the long tradition of February calendar discounts, we now have them on sale at half price: just £4.99 each (+ postage/shipping).
Each month of the Cloud Calendar features a stunning cloudscape photographed by a member of the Cloud Appreciation Society, selected from the many thousands on our photo gallery. For each image, there is a brief account by the member of what inspired them take the photograph and, at the back of the calendar, a spread gives descriptions and explanations of the cloud formations featured.
You can buy the discounted calendar in our cloud shop.
Mike Sharp’s image of lightning over Penang, Malaysia is a beauty, and so receives the highest honour of cloud photographs sent in to us during the past month: it becomes February’s Cloud of The Month.
Landscape Treks are a small company who guide people to wild locations in the UK’s mountains to experience superb scenery, capture stunning images and above all, enjoy being in the great outdoors.
If you would like to join one of their treks specifically to enjoy being guided to some remote locations and enjoy some cloud watching please contact them via their website.
A Crocheted Cumulus from 'Cummulus' at the Paris experimental sci-art gallery, Le Laboratoire
Barbara Felicetti of Ardmore, PA recently drew our attention to this article on the New Scientist website by their CultureLab editor, Kate Austen who was lucky enough to visit the experimental sci-art gallery “Le Laboratoire” in Paris to view these beautiful crocheted cumulus clouds.
“Lit from within and above, the swathes of crocheted white wool hang from the ceiling to just half a metre above the ground, casting familiar shadows on the gallery floor. The fluffy cashmilon wool chosen by the artist, Argentinean architect Ciro Najle, works well for cumulus clouds – the puffy ones that can precede thunder storms, and are precursors to the godfather of clouds, the cumulonimbus” she says.
Cloud enthusiast HelmutVölter recently contacted us about an exhibition he curated for The Fotomuseum Winterthur in Switzerland entitled “Cloud Studies – The Sicentific View of the Sky”. The exhibition is currently running until 12th February 2012.
The exhibition contains a range of original cloud photographs that have been produced and used in many different ways. There are cloud atlases (the first International Cloud Atlas from 1896), cloud photo albums, single photogrpahs, hand books, press photographs, magazines and films. The Japanese physicist, Masanae Abe observed and filmed the clouds around Mt Fuji in the 1930’s.
Ryan Verwest's image is January's Cloud of the Month
…and it’s a beauty. Not only does Ryan Verwest’s photograph show one of our favourite cloud types, the lenticularis cloud, it also shows the beautiful rainbow colours that can result from the sunlight passing through a cloud’s edges. Not all clouds have silver linings. Some have multi-coloured ones. See the January Cloud of the Month here.
Frequent visitors to the society Cloud Gallery will be familiar with the beautiful and dramatic ‘Kelvin-Helmholtz clouds’, which look like a series of breaking waves and often appear in a line of beautiful vortices. Normally, these formations are spotted amongst mid-level or high clouds, and so are only noticed by cloudspotters who make a point of looking up. We made Kelvin-Helmholtz wave clouds worth 55 ‘cloud-collecting points’ in our reference book The Cloud Collector’s Handbook, in which you get point for the different clouds you spot (UK version of the book is here, US version is here). This is the highest points of all the clouds types in the book, since it is rare and fleeting formation that is easy to miss.
But not all examples of Kelvin-Helmholtz clouds are this elusive. Some recently appeared in the skies over Birmingham, Alabama, US, which no one could have missed. These wave clouds were so low in the sky, and had such prominent breaking-wave shapes that they stunned locals. The dramatic waves soon flooded the media, newspapers and Internet. They became known as the ‘Alabama tsunami clouds’.
We would like to wish a very Merry Christmas to all our members – both old and new. And to get you in the mood, we’ve picked out a few festive clouds that look things from the society photography gallery:
Cloud of the Month for December: a nice bit of Cirrus
After a long absence from the website, we have now reinstated our Cloud of the Month. This is where, each month, we simply choose our favourite cloud photograph from the society’s amazing photo gallery.
The Cloud of the Month for December is some fancy Cirrus clouds spotted over South Carolina, US, and photographed by Betty Owen. You can see previous Clouds of The Month here. (Please bear with us when it comes to some of the older entries, as we are still updating the layouts).
Esther Swift, leader of the Clouds Harp Quartet recently contacted us as she has written and recorded a five movement piece entitled ‘Clouds’for the harp quartet.
They recently completed their first UK tour to promote this, their debut CD, and will be playing at the Bridgewater Hall, Manchester on the 13th and 14th December. Details can be found here.
'Landscape with Billowing Clouds' by Thomas Kerrich
Mary Cooper, Member Number 23844, has been in touch to tell us that an art exhibition currently showing at the Tate Britain in London, UK, might be of interest to cloudspotters. Mary told us that “there is a whole room dedicated to the most wild and wonderful paintings of clouds, or ‘skying’ as Constable called it”.
She goes on to explain that the exhibition contains “exquisite chalk sketches by Thomas Kerrich and Down [she wasn’t sure of the name of this artist] dating from before cloud classification, a notebook illustrating techniques for shading in clouds, wonderful Constables (of course) and Turner sketchbooks”. Littered throughout the exhibition are all the amazing Turner cloudscapes that The Tate possesses and, it seems, much more besides.
The exhibition is free. Here are the details and a link to the (minimal) information about it on the Tate website:
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Have you ever felt the need for a more substantial badge than the one you received when you became a member of The Cloud Appreciation Society? Ever felt the need for one that is a little more fancy, a little more showy to tell others of your membership to this most ethereal of societies? Then you will be pleased to hear that we are now selling beautiful new Enamel Member Badges in our Cloud Shop. New members will still get the standard badges when they join but, in due course, we will add an option for them to buy one of these fancy badges at the same time.
This month, we’ve chosen a pleasing mixed sky over the Netherlands by Math Gossens. Click here to see the: 
italy.jpg "A Christmas tree over Mercogliano, Italy.")
