Ric Johnson, a poet from Liverpool, took this photograph and wrote a limerick about it whilst travelling North on the M6, somewhere in the Midlands, UK. This particular kiss only lasted for a very short time before dissolving.
The Kiss
You may think this is just hit and miss
When two clouds have a moment of bliss
A collision of lips at height atmospheric
Left us loonies below in a state quite mesmeric
As giants melt in Cumulus kiss!
© Ric Johnson 2022 – Another Liverpool Poet
Theresa Mohaddes (member 54,684) came across this art piece by Tacita Dean at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
Kristen-Rose DiMartino (member 47,377) proposed “Big Cloud” by Radiator Hospital for the Music to Watch Clouds By section of our website
Rebecca Marr (member 7,548) shared this video by the American socially engaged artist Matthew Mazotta, of his CLOUD HOUSE in Springfield, MO.
This cloud formation should have a Latin name, but it is yet to be classed as an official cloud type. It can appear in the turbulent airflows downwind of mountain peaks, and we think it looks like eyebrows in the sky.
This would be a good cloud to be added to the list of types because it has a distinctive appearance that’s easily differentiated from other formations. Also, pilots would likely want it to have a name for practical reasons: so that they can learn to stay well away from it. This cloud reveals where turbulence in the mountain airflow is particularly chaotic and violent, which is where no glider pilot wants to fly.
The turbulence develops as part of the rising and dipping flow of air as winds pass over mountains. Much of the airflow is smooth, rising to pass over the peak and dipping back down again beyond, like water flowing over a rock in a stream. But just as the water flowing in a stream can break and foam at a particular point beyond the obstacle, so can the wave of the airflow break at a particular point downwind of the mountain peak. Where this happens, if it does, depends on the shape of the terrain and the speed of the wind. Often the breaking wave of air is invisible. Sometimes, it produces a churning, roll-like cloud described by pilots as a rotor cloud. Sometimes, when the air tumbles over itself, it makes the distinctive shape of eyebrow clouds.
We’ve had examples of this unnamed formation sent in by members from around the world, including examples over the Sierra Nevada of California, US, the mighty Himalayas of Nepal, and the alpine peaks of Switzerland like The Eiger mountain and The Jungfrau. We even have a Latin name in mind for it. This was suggested to us by Latin scholar Rick LaFleur, Franklin Professor of Classics Emeritus at the University of Georgia, US when we asked him how the Romans would have referred to an eyebrow. Rick suggested the term supercilium, which is Latin for ‘eyebrow’.
It’s been a few years since the Cloud Appreciation Society last argued that the official naming system for clouds should have a new classification of cloud added to it. The chaotic, wavy-looking asperitas cloud was eventually accepted as a new cloud type by the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) after we’d argued the case for it to be given a name. Asperitas was added to the WMO’s official reference work The International Cloud Atlas back in March 2017. That was exactly five years ago this month. Perhaps it’s time to start a new cloud-classification campaign and raise some eyebrows with the supercilium cloud?
Altocumulus ‘supercilium’ spotted by over the Sangre de Cristo Mountains of New Mexico, US by Marc Davey (Member 41868).
Gary Yost, member 56,542, has recently completed a new project about clouds in the Western USA.
Mary Williamson, member 54,343 sent us this beautiful choice for our Music to Watch Clouds by section
Melissa Robertson, member 41,195, sent us the link to this video by storm chaser, Pecos Hank, who also plays all the music, shoots, narrates, and edits.
Artist, Keith Harder sent us this video of his work inspired by a photo taken in Alberta, Canada. The painting is from a series of paintings entitled “ILL Winds” that depict towering cumulus at night.
Kandy Phillips, member 49,627, and her granddaughter completed their “painting a sky a day challenge” for the month of February which her granddaughter initiated.
Artist, Hyejin Park, created this small art from a photograph taken two years ago. We hope you enjoy it as much as we did.
Mother-of-pearl formations spotted over Iceland are the Cloud of the Month for February. Welcome to the high-altitude world of nacreous clouds…
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.
Yvonne Maximchuk, member 50,031, has been an artist and cloudspotter for many years. She told us “I’ve always been a cloud gazer and they’ve shown up in my work since my first paintings in 1970…”
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.
Hyejin Park, sent us this painting of the sky seen from the window of their room.
Yvonne Maximchuk, member 50,031, told us “sometimes I sleep on my deck in my easy chair, never knowing what I might see when I open my eyes…”
Clare Scott, member 39,730, created this plein air, pastel painting of a pyrocumulus cloud building from one of the largest wildfires (Cameron Peak Fire) in Colorado north of where she was painting.
In Cloud of the Month for January, we’re beamed up by the flying saucer of the cloud world…
Artist photographer, Robert Ireland, recently contacted us with details of his online cloud photography exhibition – Where Earth Meets the Sky.
Carole Rae Watanabe, member 57,467, spends a lot of time in Kaua’i Hawai’i and is inspired by the clouds there over the ocean.
Massimiliano Squadroni sent us this timelapse from Castelluccio di Norcia, February 16, 2021 showing a wonderful display of clouds over one of the highest settlements in the Apennines.
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.
David Oscarson, member 40,914, has been painting watercolours for a number years and includes clouds in his landscape watercolours.
Gary Yost, member 56,542, recently completed “The Earth Breathes – A Week in the West”, a new film that transforms fire prevention cameras into a showcase of the West’s fragile beauty.
When Claudio Cattaneo (Member 13,236) took to the ski slopes of Crans-Montana, Switzerland early on a cold December morning, he was greeted by a glittering display of halo phenomena…
Karen Fitzgerald is a mid-career visual artist living and working in New York City. Having been born and raised in Wisconsin watching the sky is an essential part of her day.
Sarah Sturgis, member 56,262 painted this recently for a friend who had asked if she could show rain in her paintings.
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
Ola Måspers, member 38,703, suggested “Get off My Cloud” by the Rolling Stones for the “Music to Watch Clouds” by section of our website.
Stratocumulus is a low, clumpy cloud layer that plays a vital role on our planet…
Judy Friesem, member 50,071 created this watercolour of a stormy day at the beginning of the pandemic. We love the way she has captured the drama of the sky.
Massimiliano Squadroni, sent this video timelapse “Sunrise, A New Day” from Italy. It was filmed using the daily timelapse technique between 27th September and 1st October 2021.
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.
Author and artist Lucretia Bingham, member 53,512, features clouds in most of her paintings and this one was inspired by a camping trip in early Autumn.
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.
In Cloud of the Month for October, we explain the trails of precipitation known as virga and what they reveal about water in our atmosphere…
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”.
