h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

A large sculpture of Michael Winner's head just floated past - scary.

(Don't worry, dear - it's just a meteorological phenomenon)

Cheers, Icy

There is a weird cloud formation you can see at http://www.geocities.com/zartanias/naturesway.jpg
I don't know whether it's been photoshopped...

Hmmm, doesn't look too real to me. Nice idea, though.

hmm, smattering of cloud only today, but there is one that due to some trick or other looks round, yellow and very bright. It's quite a persistant illusion as well.

Can I resurrect this thread to let all h2g2 cloud lovers know about the 12 new varieties of cloud included in the World Meteorological Organization's 2017 edition of the International Cloud Atlas:

http://www.wmo.int/wmocloudatlas/ICA-New-classifications.html

Fluctus is particularly impressive.

It's a shame that this is one of those threads that petered out so soon. It could have gone on all these years. Or are we losing our powers of imagination and Charlie-Brownness?

In future I'll look at the clouds every day and post here. However, today the sky is a homogeneous grey-blue - not an actual cloud in sight.

Yes, I've only got a view of nimbostratus at the moment, too.

Fluctus is very impressive - amazing how much pattern is in it...

I like this thread, as I really enjoyed reading The Cloud Collector's Handbook a few years ago

One interesting thing about the International Cloud Atlas is that it defines other things which you might see in the sky which aren’t clouds, and it calls these (confusingly) meteors.

There are four types:

Hydrometeors (rain, spray, water spouts, hoar frost, etc)

http://www.wmocloudatlas.org/general-classification-of-meteors-hydrometeors.html


Lithometeors (haze, smoke, sandstorms, etc)

http://www.wmocloudatlas.org/general-classification-of-meteors-lithometeors.html


Photometeors (halos, rainbows, mirages, etc)

http://www.wmocloudatlas.org/general-classification-of-meteors-photometeors.html


Electrometeors (lightning, auroras)

http://www.wmocloudatlas.org/general-classification-of-meteors-electrometeors.html


It’s strange seeing formal scientific definitions and photos for things which are (in the main) completely obvious.

That is interesting, especially photometeors like twilight where I wouldn't have thought there was a classifiable phenomenon behind it as it does seem 'obvious' but the classification makes sense

The cloudscape hasn't been very interesting here this week - today there's not a cumulus in the sky...

Now, this looks like a cloud to avoid:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-39585868