Our Cloud of the Month for January shows Sea Smoke over the coast of Maine, US…
Category: Cloud of the Month
Every month, we choose one of our favourite photographs from the Cloud Gallery to become our Cloud of the Month.
January 19, 2018
December 11, 2017
Ice jellyfish in the sky…
November 15, 2017
A dramatic lenticularis sunset reveals the contour lines of the sky…
October 20, 2017
The Cloud of the Month for October reveals the waves above…
September 18, 2017
For September’s Cloud of the Month, we’ve chosen a display of ‘anti-crepuscular rays’…
August 8, 2017
It is time to clear up some confusions about what is, and what isn’t, a ‘shelf cloud’.
July 24, 2017
Your chances of seeing the vibrant ‘circumhorizon arc’ optical effect are either fantastic or hopeless, depending on where you are and the time of year…
June 21, 2017
When a mountain goes for a 17-Century look…
May 23, 2017
Welcome to the ’anvil crawler‘…
April 15, 2017
Cloud of the Month for April is the accessory cloud known as a ‘pileus’…
March 15, 2017
It is not often that we at the Cloud Appreciation Society wish the clouds away…
February 9, 2017
The aliens have landed in February’s Cloud of the Month…
January 6, 2017
Cloud of the Month for January is a rain cloud that changed its mind…
December 3, 2016
Cloud of the Month for December is the ghost of rainbows past…
November 11, 2016
Earlier this month, a peculiar ring appeared in the clouds over Warwickshire, England…
October 4, 2016
When you see a flat-looking rainbow, right down close to the ground, you are looking at a ‘lowbow’…
September 5, 2016
Cloud of the Month for September is a storm with mood lighting…
August 4, 2016
August Cloud of the Month is the variety known as ‘lacunosus’…
July 2, 2016
Cloud of the Month for July is an optical effect known as a ‘corona’…
June 2, 2016
Cloud of the Month for June is the extremely high, and rather mysterious, night-shining cloud…
May 2, 2016
Cloud of the Month for May is one of the rarest cloud formations, and quite possibly the most difficult one to spot…
April 8, 2016
When the underside of a cloud layer is festooned with pouches like this, the formation is known as mamma…
March 1, 2016
When the sky is covered in a high layer of ice crystals, known as a Cirrostratus cloud, there is always a possibility for dramatic halo phenomena…
February 4, 2016
During the first days of February, strange and beautifully coloured cloud formations were noticed by many cloudspotters across Britain and Ireland…
January 6, 2016
Mountains love dressing up in clouds. They wear them over their rocky slopes like delicate, flowing robes of moisture…
December 5, 2015
Cloudspotting mountaineers and hill walkers on the Brocken mountain in Northern Germany often find themselves climbing through a bank of stratus cloud to emerge into the sunlight above…
November 5, 2015
You know those glorious fingers of sunlight that sometimes burst out from behind clouds? They’re called ‘crepuscular rays’, they form when light and shadow are rendered visible by haze in the atmosphere…
October 8, 2015
Regularity in the natural world always feels surprising to us – the uniform hexagon formations of honeycombs, the intricate fractal swirls of ferns, a regular pattern of clouds…
September 6, 2015
September is a big month for the Cloud Appreciation Society, as we are holding our ten-year anniversary event in London…
August 9, 2015
Close your eyes, think of a cloud, and it’s probably a Cumulus that comes to mind…
July 3, 2015
For July’s Cloud of the Month, we’ve chosen a formation that was accepted as a new type of cloud a few weeks ago…
June 6, 2015
The Altocumulus lenticularis cloud is an ‘orographic’ cloud formation, which means that it tends to form as winds are forced upwards to pass over mountains…
May 1, 2015
Low clouds like Cumulus tend to consist of water droplets. High ones like Cirrus are made of ice crystals…
April 5, 2015
April’s cloud of the month looms over Lake Tuggeranong, in the south of Canberra, Australia, resplendent in the golden rays of the evening…
February 27, 2015
Formations like these over Warwick, southeast Queensland, Australia are often described as ‘jellyfish clouds’ on account of the tendrils that dangle below them…
January 31, 2015
Once observed, never forgotten. That’s what they say about the celestial light display known as the aurora borealis, or northern lights…
January 12, 2015
Cloud of the Month for January is a classic, UFO-shaped Altocumulus lenticularis cloud…
December 6, 2014
hat could be more festive than a couple of colourful sundogs, in the Cirrostratus skies of northern Italy, seated on either side of a warm, fiery Sun?…
November 17, 2014
How and where a cloud releases its load to earth can vary greatly with the type of cloud. In the case of November’s Cloud of the Month, a large Cumulonimbus over the Mongolian Steppe, the precipitation is sudden…
October 7, 2014
Cloudspotters are often to be found gazing wistfully to the west as the dying rays of the setting sun drop behind Cumulus towers on the distant horizon…
