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: hello@cloudappreciationsociety.org.
Renée Loth recently wrote a column in the Boston Globe about the joys of cloudspotting and the feelings it can evoke. It’s a beautifully descriptive piece and we hope you enjoy reading it as much as we did. Thanks to Lynn Bruneau, Member 42,098 for drawing our attention to it.
You can read the article here
CGI artist and painter, Matt Wilson, has sent in his series Surreal Cloudscapes. Matt created the CGI cloudscapes in the recent ‘Lightyear’ Pixar movie, but during Covid isolation he began experimenting with creating cloudscapes on his own. He calls his art series Sentinels, and they were recently featured in the Solo Show in New York City.
Matt explained to us how he goes about creating clouds on computers. “Clouds are elusive creatures”, he told us, “and as such require a wide spectrum of methods to represent their forms and movement. Even with today’s massive computing power they still push the edge of the technology, which for me reiterates their magic out in the real world. In movies, television or games, any time you see a puff of smoke, or a cloud or fog or any “volumetric” effect, they are typically represented by something called “voxels”, or volume pixels. Essentially little cubes filled with a certain amount of “density” or a given substance (water droplets, smoke, etc)… often billions of them (yes that does take up a LOT of data storage). You can stack those cubes into a shape by either sculpting it into place, like a sculptor with clay, or you can use the much more complex process of using physics simulations to choreograph the volume into place. Both are equally fun but the later of the two gives you the opportunity to try to understand the underlying physics”.
We asked Matt to explain how he references real clouds when sculpting his digital ones. “
Observation and understanding are my first steps,” he explained. “Combing through the years of C.A.S. images, google image search and my edition of the cloud spotters guide is usually where I begin. I go about my simulation setups by trying to evaluate the source of humidity from the ground up and then the surrounding atmospheric conditions; temperature gradient as the cloud rises up in the air, sheering forces and turbulence. Mammatus undulatus is a great example of a cloud formation where the shape of the turbulence is much easier to visually see, relative to other more complex cloud types like cumulus fractus. You can think of the overall cloudscape as a recipe… a combination of several of types at various altitudes. You begin with a big cumulus congestus formation built using a simulation surrounded by some hand-placed, sculpted, cumulus humilis clouds and “ice the cake” with a layer of altostratus clouds that can be sculpted using some fractal math”.
We think the clouds are really convincing and we’re so pleased that the real clouds on the CAS Photo Gallery have served as inspiration.
You can see more of Matt’s work on his website
We have just launched a Kickstarter to create a website for Cloud Appreciation Day on Friday September 16th. The Memory Cloud Atlas will be a free resource for anyone, anywhere to share their sky on this day and the feelings it elicits in them. Help us record a worldwide snapshot of richly diverse perspectives on the sky and preserve it as a record for the future. Please support this Kickstarter and bring people together by sharing their love of the sky.
NASA is researching clouds in the upper atmosphere of Mars and it needs your help to spot them. If you’re interested in doing some extra-terrestrial cloudspotting, join in with NASAs Citizen Science project to help recognise the tell-tale signals of Martian clouds on the readings from the Mars Climate Sounder, an instrument on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. The clouds are likely composed of water ice and carbon dioxide ice. Your input in spotting them from their satellite readings will help us better understand these Martian clouds.
More information can be found here
The Cloud Appreciation Society is featured in an exhibition at the Los Angeles Public Library called Something in Common, which features societies and organisations around the world that bring people together for all the good stuff that comes with community.
Organised by Todd Lerew (Member 47,655), Library Foundation’s Director of Special Projects, the show includes in the CAS exhibit a changing display of the Cloud-a-Day that we send out to our subscribing members. It also features the story of how members of the Cloud Appreciation Society came together in 2017 to persuade the World Meteorological Organisation to accept the asperitas cloud as a new official classification, which led to it becoming the first new cloud type to be recognised since the 1950s. There’s a stunning projection of an asperitas time-lapse kindly contributed by storm chaser extraordinaire Mike Olbinski (Member 045). (Mike refers in his video to the cloud with the slightly different name ‘asperatus’, which is what we’d originally proposed for it before it became official.)
Something in Common is showing in the Getty Gallery of the Central Library, Los Angeles Public Library, Los Angeles, US until November 6th.
All photographs © Ian Byers-Gamber
NASA’s Earth Observatory recently featured a peculiar occurrence of stratocumulus clouds over the Caspian Sea.
Photographed using NASA’s MODIS satellite instrument, the cloud appears to have been a lover of the open seas. Having appeared over the Caspian Sea, it drifted towards the coast of Makhachkala, Russia, where it dissipated upon reaching land.
Read more on NASA Earth Observatory about the peculiar cloud over the Caspian.
Ruth Richardson, Member 52,754, got in touch to ask members to sign a petition for the preservation of a house in North London, which was home to Luke Howard, the “Namer of Clouds”. 2022 is the 250th anniversary of Howard’s birth. You can read more about him in a Cloud-a-Day that we published recently. In 1802 Luke Howard proposed the system of using Latin names for clouds, many of which we still use today. The home of the “father of meteorology”, as Howard is sometimes known, is in a state of semi-dereliction, and we believe that the developers responsible for the property should be forced to restore it before it deteriorates beyond repair.
We went to visit landscape artist James Lynch (Member 51,188) in his studio in Somerset, England to learn about the skies he includes in his paintings, and how they are informed by his passion as a paraglider pilot. You can see more work on James Lynch’s website.
Attention all amateur weather photographers! Enter your best weather photos in the annual Weatherwise Photography Contest. Winners will be featured in the September/October issue of the coming year. One grand prize, one first prize, two second prizes, three third prizes, and several honorable mention prizes will be awarded. The grand prize winner will receive US$500 and all other winners receive a one-year subscription to the only magazine about the weather – Weatherwise. Send in your entries today!
The most recent contest issue is here and it is free to read.
Cloud Appreciation Society Member 001, Gavin Pretor-Pinney, was interviewed for this short documentary exploring the significance of clouds for artists and scientists throughout history, and what they can tell us about the uncertain future of the earth’s climate. ‘Head in the Clouds’ was produced by John Bader, Yu Fu and William Hornbrook, known as Silk Productions, as part of the MSc Science Media Production course at Imperial College London.
Cloud enthusiasts Mana Cazalobos and Didier Brousee both contacted us to let us know about a new Cloud exhibition at the Galerie Camera Obscura in Paris. It will be running from 4th February to 2nd April 2022 and features work by cloud photographers and artists.
For so many people, nature has become a luxury. A privilege. Something reserved for those who can afford to jet off to their villas in the tropics, heli-ski in the Canadian Rockies, or sail away on their yachts. Getting into nature for most now requires getting AWAY from something else. Our jobs, suburban developments, and our insanely over-scheduled lives. This disconnect and restriction feeds directly into the sense of having no control over one’s dreams and desires. That we MUST push away our need for nature and beauty and freedom, because our lives demand focus elsewhere. Nature, however, has provided us with a constant gift, if we’d only learn where to look for it.
I’d always noticed clouds, often because I would tilt my gaze upward when I was stuck in traffic or seeking escape from whatever mundane constructed environment I was in. I love to see beauty in what’s around me, and clouds know no boundaries. I can look up and see something spectacular whether I’m on top of a mountain, in a city, or the supermarket parking lot. I can be rich or poor, able bodied or wheelchair bound, and clouds are there so long as I remember to look up. As the CAS Manifesto states, clouds are nature’s egalitarian poetry.
When I first began actively cloud spotting, my family and friends were amused by my obsession and somewhat bewildered at times by the excitement that would overtake me when spotting a rare formation. Now, as they too take note of the sky’s display, they tell me that I have literally changed their lives. How they look up and see what otherwise was an unnoticed backdrop to their daily tasks, but now is alive and dramatic and beautiful and ever-evolving. Much like we are… or should strive to be.
Clouds form due to disturbances in the atmosphere, colliding weather patterns, moisture and wind and electricity mingling and mixing to form a plethora of varying shapes and configurations. Some are predictable and stable. Others shift before you can settle your gaze to fully see them. They are immense and heavy, undulating and churning leaden grays and greenish blacks… or delicate gossamer ribbons woven through azure silk. Yet they all can appear above the same horizon. The canvas remains constant. Above the clouds the sky is steadfast. Blue, deep, endless. The clouds express the earth’s mood and they can do so with as much volatility as a teenager. There is only one constant when it comes to clouds… they will always change.
I find myself smiling a lot more now that I always have an eye on the sky. Spotting a rare and fleeting horseshoe vortex will make me gasp with excitement. A grin appears that didn’t need anyone else to put it there. Not even a happy memory. It’s simply my spirit reacting to something that makes me feel… good. Looking for these Easter Eggs in the sky has made every humdrum drive to do errands an opportunity to be reminded that something beautiful, powerful, and natural could appear at any moment.
Artist photographer, Robert Ireland, recently contacted us with details of his online cloud photography exhibition – Where Earth Meets the Sky.
Miguel Angel Ruiz Nieto told us about the “Songs of the Sky” exhibition which is running at the C/O Berlin Foundation from 11th December 2021 until 21st April 2022.
Charlotte Aiken is an artist working in Milford, Surrey, UK. She has an exhibition which will be held tomorrow, Saturday, 27th November from 3pm to 8pm
Here’s the story of the Cloud Appreciation Society told in a minute.
Kenneth Farr, member 40,936, told us about the exhibition “Clouds, Ice, and Bounty: The Lee and Juliet Folger Fund Collection of Seventeenth-Century Dutch and Flemish Paintings” which is running at the National Gallery of Art, Washington DC, until 27th February 2022.
In Cloud Collection, Diane Borsato, member 41,749 takes us on a cloud-watching journey through the Owens Art Gallery collection.
MADISON — Stand on the ocean’s shore and take a big whiff of the salt spray and you’ll smell the unmistakably pungent scent of the sea. That ripe, almost rotting smell? That’s sulfur.
Michael Erb, member 38,503, has written a weather-themed children’s book called “The Weather Detectives”. He told us “the book is for 9-14 year olds, and I hope to inspire young readers to learn more about the weather”.
“Ghostcloud” was written by Michael Mann (member, 56,714). He told us, “it aims to make kids look up, to look with wonder at the sky, to look for shapes/figures/patterns up there. One of the themes is that people are so busy living, they never look up, when there’s a whole world up there waiting to be discovered”
Linda Bailey, member 54,891, recently came across this article on the Science News website about the effect of wildfire smoke on cumulus clouds.
Running from 30th September 2021 to 16th January 2022, the “Skyscape: The limitless art of the sky” exhibition celebrates 500 years of artists’ fascination with the sky.
Now more than ever, it’s important to introduce kids to science as something that helps us understand and respond to everything around us and meteorologist, Guy Brown’s new book “Look Up to See What the Weather Will Be” does just that.
When it comes to the relationship between clouds and temperatures on the ground, there is still so much to learn. In a world of changing climates, we still don’t know whether shifts in cloud cover globally will add to or decrease the temperatures below.
When The Daily podcast from the NYT featured the Cloud Appreciation Society recently, they told the story of how we helped identify a new classification of cloud…
New scientific evidence suggests that trees help form high the atmosphere above the ice crystals that make up Cirrus clouds…
Artist Norma Greenwood created the public art installation entitled “Cloudscapes” which is showing in the Jacksonville, Fl. International Airport.
Finally, there are cards available for everyone who’s into Basset Hounds and clouds. What took so long? Find out more…
In October’s Cloud of the Month, we show how to cook up a nourishing cloud dish…
Matt Minshall (Member 7,721) shows how architects through the ages have drawn inspiration from the sky…
Sarah McDougall, member 47,052, having talked to the curator of the Gathering Clouds exhibition in Christcurch, NZ contacted us to tell us about this exhibition in Rochester, New York.
Kay Söderlund, Society member 51,007, recently told us about a vital research project covering more than 20 years which has precisely measured the cooling rate in the upper atmosphere, about 90km above Antarctica.
Robyn Bartlett (member 24340) and Kim Stirling heard this interesting Australian radio segment combining the sounds of the Aurora Australis with a piano.
Sarah Howerd, member 46,352, found this Procreate painting tutorial by James Julier. She told us “This video is like a mix of Turner, Constable, and Bob Ross if they’d had a YouTube channel together
Richard Bacon, member 51546, contacted us to tell us about an exhibition “Gathering Clouds” which is currently running at the Christchurch Art Gallery in New Zealand
Madeleine Russell, of RAL Space recently contacted us to invite our members to take part in our online citizen science project.
Claudia Zeiske told us about Under One Sky, “People log their miles and send a picture of their sky to Artist Iman Tajik, who will then create an art work from all of our clouds”
Photographers all around the world have been sharing their weather photos, some taken during lockdown, as part of the Weather Photographer of the Year 2020 competition – closing date is 6th July!
Cloud enthusiast, Bill Whitcher, recently came across this article on the Atlas Obscura website which he felt is an excellent description of clouds through space and art
