Ten Basic Clouds
noaa.gov
noaa.gov
It made me a total cloud addict, and spurred a far deeper interest in the role of the atmosphere in environmental science which has persisted ever since.
I heartily recommend looking up at the sky, dividing into oktas (eighths) and trying to classify how much of the low, medium and high clouds there are. If you do it regularly enough, the changes begin to astound. Getting your kids to do it too is also wonderful, because it's always there as an activity... :)
Really hoping this site comes online again soon!
https://www.worldofbooks.com/en-gb/products/met-office-cloud...
There was a thread this winter on solstices, with commenters expressing wonder at how could humans figure those out. If you notice sunrises/sunsets day after day over the years, it is inescapable. It's sad that we the modern humans spend so much time hunkered below opaque ceilings.
But I will say this, having interest in cloud-spotting and amateur astronomy is very very rewarding. Clouds stop being an impediment to you and grow into a phenomena worth appreciating on their own terms.
Like cumulonimbus = thunderstorm, stratus = maybe rain, sure. But what about the others?
We also did air observations for pilots. If you saw certain types of cumulus near peaks, called lenticulars, pilots wouldn't go near them because they're caused by pretty dangerous winds dynamics.
It's all connected, which is why it gets so fascinating. Sadly, I never pursued meteorology beyond hobbyist, but I'd love to!
* https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f0/MorningG...
Personal top three clouds:
- Nacreous clouds
- Altocumulus lenticularis
- Cirrus homogenitus (what a name)
I remember that one time where anti-solar rays painted pole to pole "longitudes" on the hemispherical dome of the sky. It's too bad we don't have photographic memory, or at least I don't.
It is such a wonderful world if one has the luxury of time and space and the foresight to remove oneself from the cover of a ceiling once in a while.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belt_of_Venus
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crepuscular_rays#Gallery
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anticrepuscular_rays#/media/Fi...
> It is a pinkish glow that surrounds the observer
This also makes no sense to me, or else maybe observer is jargon? But there's no hyperlink... The photographer certainly doesn't seem to be surrounded by a pinkish glow.
Is it just a name for the purple part of the spectrum?
I do not understand the Physics of the phenomenon very well, but I would expect the high frequency wavelengths (for example, purple) to be scattered away.
"Surround" does not describe the phenomenon of Belt of Venus adequately. Think of it like a horizontal band wrapped around the dome of the sky, slightly above the horizon, and prominent towards the West, fading towards the East.
Normally "purple" is used for colors that are equivalent with a mixture of red and blue, so that none of the spectral colors can match that mixture.
"Violet" is also used for colors equivalent with a mixture of red and blue, but which have so much more blue than red that there are monochromatic colors in the spectrum which can match that color and which have a frequency higher than the monochromatic colors that appear blue.
The fact that the monochromatic colors in the violet range have the same color as a mixture with a lot of blue and a little red is caused by the fact that the human red photoreceptors have a defect, instead of filtering only red light they have a second peak of absorption in the frequency range of the monochromatic violet light, so the violet light is perceived by both the blue photoreceptors and, with an attenuated value, by the red photoreceptors.
The acronym ROYGBIV should better be forgotten, because it is not known with certainty what Newton meant by "blue" and "indigo", so this acronym is misleading for the people familiar only with modern English.
It is pretty much certain that Newton did not use those words with their present meaning. He used them based on the labels of some artistic paints that he happened to have at home. His indigo paint (i.e. with indigo pigment) appears to correspond with what today would be called "blue", while his "blue" paint seems to have actually been a blue-green paint (i.e. the color that is complementary to red, and which is also called correctly turquoise and frequently but incorrectly cyan). Thus it appears that Newton meant to say that the 7 spectral colors are red, orange, yellow, green, blue-green, blue and violet, which makes sense.
I also wasn't sure what to make of "in the midwest". Not being from the US, I thought that that would be referring to Austin -- but when I asked Gemini, it confidently told me that Austin is not in the Midwest. I know the Bay Area is not in the Midwest, so... Are you referring to a third place here?
Presumably he spent his youth in the Midwest. Austin is a pretty transient city so OP likely moved there.
Funny enough I have felt similar to OP about Texas skies compared to the East Coast. The plains landscape and the heat (common to the Midwest) seems to create a cloud overlay so very different from what you find on the coasts. Me, I'll keep my stratocumulus and cirrocumulus beautiful sunsets of the South Eastern United States anyday!
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They have forums where people post neat cloud photos and if you sign up for membership they will send you an identification chart plus a journal for keeping track of the types you have seen.
Makes for a nice gift for that person you know who always goes "oh look at that cloud!" :)
'No son, that's a Cumulus cloud. Detached, dense, with sharp outlines.'
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_physics
Cloud formation is probably interesting example of spontaneous symmetry breaking, but that doesn’t seem to be much studied.