Mackerel sky

If you've read previous entries, you'll know how much I like clouds. These pics were taken last weekend at sunset. We don't get a mackerel sky very often.

These are altocumulus clouds, defined by the National Weather Service as:

A cloud of a class characterized by globular masses or rolls in layers or patches, the individual elements being larger and darker than those of cirrocumulus and smaller than those of stratocumulus. These clouds are of medium altitude, about 8000-20,000 ft (2400-6100 m).

Gulf coast cloud

Last night's view from the back garden: An anvil cloud formed over Marco Island (easily located on Weather.com's animated radar; it was the only cloud west of Miami.)

A good 10 years ago, an especially spectacular anvil, lit up by internal lightning, formed over Naples. It made the evening news on all the local channels, but The Herald didn't have it, mostly because that time of the day is so busy and the newsroom faces east, over the Bay. I asked then photo director, Dennis Copeland, about it. He had just been chewed out by the executive editor (Doug Clifton) for missing it and Dennis chewed me out for not alerting him!

Clouds

Anyone spending a lot of time outdoors starts to appreciate clouds. Here's a neighborhood sunset photo; the other is looking across Florida Bay from the Overseas Highway.


There's a Cloud Appreciation Society in the UK (and members worldwide) with a photo gallery of spectacular cloud formations. (What is a "fallstreak hole?")









The CAS made news last week by petitioning for a new category of cloud: Asperatus. The BBC explains it with a slide show here.

I read the CAS "manifesto" and decided to join:

WE BELIEVE that clouds are unjustly maligned and that life would be immeasurably poorer without them.

We think that they are Nature’s poetry, and the most egalitarian of her displays, since everyone can have a fantastic view of them.

We pledge to fight ‘blue-sky thinking’ wherever we find it. Life would be dull if we had to look up at cloudless monotony day after day.

We seek to remind people that clouds are expressions of the atmosphere’s moods, and can be read like those ofa person’s countenance.

Clouds are so commonplace that their beauty is often overlooked. They are for dreamers and their contemplation benefits the soul. Indeed, all who consider the shapes they see in them will save on psychoanalysis bills.

And so we say to all who’ll listen: Look up, marvel at the ephemeral beauty, and live life with your head in the clouds!