Riders of the Storm

Am not sure what's going on here meteorologically, but this was the scene last night in Olympia at 9 p.m. before the Big Storm moved in. I have never seen this type of cloud formation before--a cumulus cloud with a windswept undulating underside, but I had a feeling it had something to do with the predicted rain. I had been watching and photographing the sky all day (from my hammock in the backyard and elsewhere) as altocumulus clouds moved in and covered about half the sky in large patches with cumulus congestus lurking on the horizons to the northwest and southeast. Oddly (or perhaps normally), the altocumulus cleared out around 5 p.m., then storm clouds began appearing everywhere.--the massive, billowing cumulonimbus clouds A cold front was moving in fast as if it was racing to get in place before sunset. I hopped in the car to get to my skyviewing spots before the storm hit. I caught the image above about 30 minutes after sunset. At this point in my research, I can only say that it must have been part of the front, perhaps what some books call a "gust front." I am trying to figure out exactly how they work.

Quite frankly, it is all quite overwhelming. I am still struggling with the basics of pressure and density. I need a live-in meteorologist. Maybe a webcam on top of my roof with a real-time narrative from an unemployed weatherman or weatherwoman willing to hang out on my roof in exchange for ummm, meals, acknowledgement in my book, and a signed copy of my book.

What book? Back to work.

Clouds Make Headlines

It's not often a cloud makes the news, especially one that isn't associated with hurricane, tornado, or violent storm. On June 12, however, newspapers all over the country ran an Associated Press story about a very strange cloud described as looking "like Armageddon."

The story began back in 2006 when a woman from Cedar Rapids, Iowa, photographed a strange sky from the 11th floor of her office building (top, by Jane Wiggins). The cloud dissipated in 15 minutes and the woman held onto the photograph until just recently when she shared it with a group of dedicated weather watchers associated with the Cloud Appreciation Society based in England. The group posted the photograph online, but did not know how to categorize it. It was definitely a cumulus (heaped, puffy) cloud, but which type? It didn't seem to fit the known categories of culumus, altocumulus, or stratocumulus clouds. So the Society has begun lobbying the Royal Meteorological Society in England to create a new category--altocumulus undulatus asperatus. The last word, meaning agitated, is not part of an existing cloud name.

Why is this news? Because a new cloud type has not been recognized by scientists since 1951. And because doing so is controversial. The Society of splitters says it's new and different, the group of lumpers says it's an regular old altocumulus undulatus that no one has taken the time to comment on or "discover" until now. One lumper at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, argues that when the photo was taken in 2006, "there was no atmospheric condition that caused a new kind of cloud to form."

The truth likely lies somewhere in the middle. It may not be a new cloud, but a newly discovered cloud. Now that the Cloud Appreciation Society has a website where photographers can post their unusual cloud photos for identification, more and more people are noticing clouds and trying to learn something about them. Yay.

Dissin' the Clouds

These odd-looking streaks appeared in the cirrostratus-cirrocumulus cloud layer over my house a few weeks back. They look like reverse contrails formed by two planes taking off from Portland, Oregon, minutes after each other. In fact, they are called "distrails"--short for dissipation trails. They form when the plane's exhaust is warm enough to evaporate some of the water particles in the cloud layer, or when drier air surrounding the cloud is mixed in by the plane's turbulence, or when the particles in the exhaust of the plane serve as condensation nuclei. The cloud droplets grow large and heavy enough to fall out of the cloud layer. They evaporate (dissipate) as they fall into the warmer air below and leaving these clear streaks behind.

This type of cloud phenomenon is apparently rare. I'd say capturing two parallel trails might be a once-in-a-lifetime photo op even though planes take off from Portland all day long.

Books of Clouds

I've been immersed in reading about clouds these past few months. Such a surprise to see how many books, fiction and non-fiction have been written about clouds. It's quite ovewhelming. One of my favorite books is a novel by Stephane Audeguy, called The Theory of Clouds. Had it not been written, this might have been mine to write. It's a fictionalized history of a late 19th-century amateur meteorologist and a contemporary fiction about a collector of cloud literature--an eccentric man who survived Hiroshima's mushroom cloud.
The 19th-century portion of the story is set in Paris, in 1889, the year of the World Fair and the World Meteorological Conference. Audeguy brings the heady scene, egoistical scientists, the swooning crowds to life the way Andrea Barrett has done in her trilogy (Voyage of the Narwhal). I have never been a fan of historical fiction--perhaps a bad dose of James Michener is responsible--but I love these books and this time period when the world was being explored and ordered and Science was earning its uppercase S. Very exciting.
Another favorite read of the season is Billy Collins' The Art of Drowning, which contains the poem "The Biography of a Cloud."
I spent an entire evening at the library recently with the Scribner's Children's Classics series illustrated by N.C. Wyeth. Each book contains fourteen of his color illustrations; many feature clouds that are luscious, fantastic, mood-evoking, and editorial. Most cloud lovers talk about the work of Turner and Constable, but Wyeth's clouds are my territory...until I discover otherwise.