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Thanks for this, Hygge.
Is your problem that we didn’t include a species in the cloud classification of that Cloud-a-Day? We classified it as ‘Cirrocumulus homomutatus’, and you’re saying you’d like to have seen us classify it as ‘Cirrocumulus floccus homomutatus’?
We often don’t include in the Cloud-a-Days all the possible species, varieties, accessory clouds, supplementary features and mother-cloud terms that could be applied to the clouds featured. To include every classification would in our opinion make the text off-putting to a lot of CAS members. It would often result in three or four Latin terms for every time we classified the cloud.
Instead, we consciously introduce readers only to the terms that are most pertinent to the main focus of the Cloud-a-Day. We aim also as much as possible to explain terms as we introduce them. Remember, the Cloud-a-Days need to work not just for people who’ve been members for many years but also, equally importantly, for anyone who’s just joined and is reading a Cloud-a-Day for the first time. The later group of members might be only vaguely aware there even are cloud classifications – perhaps only having a distant memory of hearing about ‘Cumulus’ at school. We don’t want to inundate them with Latin terms, particularly without explanation.
In the case of this Cloud-a-Day, the homomutatus classification is central to the idea of the piece but ‘floccus’ would not really have added much in the way of helpful explanation – in fact, it might have added confusion unless we took an aside to explain what the term referred to, thereby breaking the flow.
Sorry that you are, once again, unhappy with the Cloud-a-Day, Hygge. We do our best, but it never seems to be good enough for you!
Thanks,
GavinThanks for this question, Dave. And for your fine answer, Dan!
It is indeed an example of asperitas. The formation mechanism is never too clear, but one hypothesis is that the chaotic wave features in the vicinity of a storm are to do with gravity waves that are trapped between inversion layers.
Those are great shots!
Debbie,
Mostly the Latin names refer to the way the cloud look. The ones beginning with Alto- refer mid-level formations, while those beginning with Cirro- or Cirrus are high-level ones. You can see a sort of map of the hierarchy in the summary table of the naming system on the International Cloud Atlas that is published by the World Meteorological Organisation. This shows the ten main types, and how they can be subdivided into more specific forms. You could also take a look at the reference images and descriptions in our free Cloud-a-Day app for more examples.
I hope this helps!
Annie,
That’s an optical effect known as a 22-degree halo. It’s a ring around the Sun (or Moon) with a reddish inner edge. It is caused by the sunlight shining through hexagonal shaped ice crystals each of which acts like a tiny prism that refracts and reflects the light. It gets its name from the fact that, no matter where it appears in the sky, it always appears the same size –with the angle between the center, the Sun, and the ring of the halo being 22 degrees.
well spotted!
That’s a tricky one, Steven. Looks like there is a storm off to the right of the image, which suggests that the overcast sky might be the extended canopy at the top of the storm. As for the patch of cloud features in the middle, you could call these Altocumulus. But this doesn’t really capture how they are related to the storm system itself.
Ideas, anyone else?
Steve,
Mamma is the official name. This is classed as a cloud ‘supplementary feature’, and the convention is to name these with Latin nouns. Mamma means udder in Latin. This is the term used in the World Meteorological Organisation’s International Cloud Atlas.
There are sometimes more than one term used for cloud formations, and this is an example. I believe that mammatus means ‘udder-like’, but I’m not sure. It is a term left over from earlier incarnations of the International Cloud Atlas, before they rationalised the grammatical rules behind the choice of Latin words for the classifications. You can see here a sheet from the first Atlas in 1896, which originally has the word combined with Cumulus to form Mammato-cumulus:
We always try to stick with the current official classification terms, which suggests ‘mamma’ is the way to go. I hope that helps!
Ann, the CliudSpotter iPhone app doesn’t let you re-submit images as a different type after they have previously been verified by the moderators.
Once we start introducing user collections and moderation in our new free, cross-platform app, Cloud-a-Day, users will indeed be able to resubmit the same image twice. This will be happening during 2020. You can see the current stage of development of this app on the App Store here: https://apps.apple.com/in/app/cloud-a-day/id1314437708 and on the Google Play Store here: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.cloudappreciationsociety.cloudaday&hl=en_GB
Dear ‘Shiprock45’,
We can do this for you if you would like to email us at membership@cloudappreciationsociety.org. You should, however, be able to change your display name yourself as follows:- Make sure you are logged in to the website
- Go to the My Account page (accessible from the profile icon in the top right of the page
- Select the ‘My CAS Profile’ link
- Select the ‘Edit’ option
- While you can’t change your membership name, you should be able to select a display name
I hope this helps, but do email us if you have difficulties!
Yes, I think that Richard Hamblyn got the classification of optical effect wrong here. It is of course a circumzenithal arc and the top of a 22-degree halo, as Hans suggests. Well spotted, Hygge, George and Hans.
Yes, she didn’t come up with a very original name (or she might have referenced CAS), but all ideas are inspired by other things – our Society’s as much as any other.
It is great to have you back in the Society, Carsten. 🙂
Hopefully, Hans’s reply explains things. It would be great to see your photo on the gallery. Just email it to photos@cloudappteciationsociety.org and Ian Loxley, the gallery editor, will post it for you.
Many thanks and welcome back!
Dear Chris,
In my opinion, you son has won the challenge. That looks like a pretty classic Kelvin-Helmholtz formation (now more formally known as fluctus). To have been an ideal example, the tops of the undulations would have had more pronounced curls to them, but I still think this is a pretty good example.
I hope he wins something good.
Gavin
