The Cloud Appreciation Society: Rare & Unusual Formations

[Pinklefish]

That one's got a wee flag on it.
One giant step for....arrrrghhH! the saucers!!!

 

[Number 6]

Quick, someone get the theremin out!
Seriously though, I love photos like these but I just can't see how people can mistake a big white (albeit strangely shaped) fluffy thing for a flying saucer. The same goes for something like aurora, sun pillars or a halo around the moon - beautiful and maybe slightly eerie, but (to me at least) obviously natural.

 

[gyrtrash]

weird clouds...

Not lenticular...but...

I was driving back home after a day's walking a few weeks back, and noticed something 'odd' in the sky.

It was as if this cloud had developed 'lumps' that hung below the main body of cloud. The 'lumps' seemed to consist of a 'constantly moving' vapour, like it was 'boiling'...

As I took the pics the 'lumps' were 'absorbed' or 'drawn up' into the cloud...


Anyone know what this meteorological oddity is called? And what causes it?

 

[marion]

These cloud formations are called mammatus formations cause they look like breasts! They are associated with tornadoes and aren't common in the UK,if you see them hang about and watch,you might see a tornado develop (they are usually very small and short lived in the UK)

 

[Jerry_B]

I remember seeing such clouds seething away above me during the approach of a powerful thunderstorm. I was with my brother at the time - 'Bloody hell!', he said 'It's like Raiders of the Lost Ark!' Which was quite true. It was such an odd thing to watch that it quite unnerved me at the time! It wasn't as fast as one sees it in that film, but it was fast enough to be noticable. This was one of three occasions when I've witnessed unusual weather effects, and all have been associated with thunderstorms.

 

[Anonymous]

*Sigh* No clouds where I live..just yucky chemtrails...

 

[Anonymous]

They are associated with tornadoes and aren't common in the UK,if you see them hang about and watch,you might see a tornado develop (they are usually very small and short lived in the UK)

Yes, but as one who lives in one of the infamous 'Tornado Alleys' of the US, if they form cones and begin to twist I'd advise you to stop watching and head for the basement or a room that does not share an outside wall!:eek!!!!:

 

[gyrtrash]

They are associated with tornadoes and aren't common in the UK,if you see them hang about and watch,you might see a tornado develop (they are usually very small and short lived in the UK)

Er, Michael Fish just said there were 2 'mini' tornadoes just east of here today!

Am I living in the midst of one of this country's 'Tornado alleys'?!

Do we get them over here?

 

[taras]

Yes, because once a year someone's house (usually in Dudley) gets their roof blown off by a mini-tornado...

 

[uair01]

This weekend I bought the following book and I think I'll enjoy it very much:

The Cloudspotter's Guide
by Gavin Pretor-Pinney

Book link

But in the book I saw a refence to this sympathetic society:

You love lying in the park on a summer’s day and looking for shapes in the cumulus clouds. You think a mackerel sky of puffy altocumulus stretching off towards the setting sun is one of the most beautiful sights in the world. In short, you love clouds. And yet everyone else just seems to complain about them. Are you the only one who thinks life would be poorer without these glorious ‘patron goddesses of idle fellows’*?


No, you’re not. There are others like you. And together we’ll fight the sun fascists and their obsessions with ‘blue-sky thinking’. As a member of The Cloud Appreciation Society, you’ll receive a free membership certificate and a badge (as shown to the right).

http://www.cloudappreciationsociety.org/

Now I don't know if we have a thread about "goofy societies", but this certainly is one. I'm going to join right away

 

[Kondoru]

Dang me, a pals a member.

She says it makes her appreachate the changing sky more.

 

[Rrose_Selavy]

It probably sounds a bit weird and it's not a phobia or anything but I sometimes find the sight of some shaped clouds quite unsettling - as if there is something very big, a bit alien in the sky - the thought of the distance and the vastness of them almost makes me a bit giddy.

-

 

[mindalai]

It probably sounds a bit weird and it's not a phobia or anything but I sometimes find the sight of some shaped clouds quite unsettling - as if there is something very big, a bit alien in the sky - the thought of the distance and the vastness of them almost makes me a bit giddy.

-

I feel exactly the same. Although I love clouds and skyscapes I get quite frightened if there is a big cloud. I find them very ominous and they give me the urge to hide under something. I was recently informed there is a word for fear of clouds and it begins with N, but that's all I can remember.

 

[rjmrjmrjm]

Reminds me of those cloud fetishists in Amtrak wars.

 

[Beakmoo]

I feel exactly the same. Although I love clouds and skyscapes I get quite frightened if there is a big cloud. I find them very ominous and they give me the urge to hide under something. I was recently informed there is a word for fear of clouds and it begins with N, but that's all I can remember.

Twas me who told you, and it's called Nephophobia.

 

[mindalai]

I remember now! Yep. nephophobia, that's what I've got.

 

[mossy_sloth]

I saw an elephant dancing on a prawn the other day.

But I don't know that I'd go so far as to join a society...

 

[Min Bannister]

We have had some wonderful clouds recently in stripes, waves and chequered patterns. I saw a lenticular cloud on the way to Glasgow the other week, for some reason the M8 seems to be the place for them.

 

[mossy_sloth]

Min - you just added a new word to my vocabulary!

Admittedly, when I first saw "lenticular" I thought of dhal...

 

[Min Bannister]

:lol:

Here are some picures of some. Some of them are really spectacular.

http://www.crystalinks.com/lenticular.html

 

[mossy_sloth]

Those are quite amazing!

I particularly like the second one. It looks like some sort of monster swooping in to take a bite of the earth. heheh.

 

[Kondoru]

Ive seen lenticular clouds in the mountains too. (not that big, but my mountains wernt that big to begin with)

I can never understand how people mistake them for UFOs....they look like clouds to me.

 

[again6]

I'd join, except I'm not a joiner.

Love clouds though. They were amongst my very first loves. Used to look at them all the time and believed they were mashed potatoes and that god sat on them and was wafted along. Disappointed when it turned out not to be true.

When I was about seven, I used to get very apprehensive when storm clouds closed in quickly. Used to panic in fact and stand there and cry before running like a hare for safety. Got over it though.

Still love clouds and really DO appreciate them on the rare occasion we're permitted to have them. Usually, the clouds are destroyed and turned into wall to wall grey blanket stuff by the constant Chemtrailing we're subjected to these days, any time rain threatens to fall and destroy their pay-for-water agenda.

In fact yesterday, a bank of glorious, old fashioned clouds rolled in, highlighted by the sun, and I called the family to the door to look (as in appreciate) them before the Chemtrail blasters destroyed them.

There are children who don't know what a real cloud looks like because all they've ever known is the uniform thinning grey stuff caused by teh Chemtrails. They include Chemtrails in commercials now and in Channel Identification snips, as a means of programming people (the young in particular) to accept Chemtrails as 'clouds'.

 

[Kondoru]

Yes, while we are at it on atmospheric phenomena, whatever happened to good old smog?

 

[placeholder]

chemtrails? fill me in...whatever they are i don't think we have them. i still see the most mesmerising cloud formations everyday, although they're definitely better along the coast than in the city.

OT for a minute, everytime i see uair01's moniker i can't help but pronounce it as "uair amháin". i know, i'm a sad little gaeilgeoir.

 

[volfie]

You're going to have to wait through commercials and almost all of the report to see the "angel cloud". I was unimpressed but, hey, maybe that's just me.

tinyurl.com/23pme8
Link is dead. No archived version found, and no such story located at CNN (where the dead link leads).

Story likely this:

A small community in western New York is mourning (ph) the loss of five young women today. They were killed this past week in a car crash just days after graduating high school together. AMERICAN MORNING's Alina Cho has got more on this tragic story. ​

​

This is just one of those horrible things.​

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CHO: It's really gut wrenching. ​

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ROBERTS: That you seem to hear it every year. ​

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CHO: You do and it's just awful. ​

​

John, you know, four of these five girls were high school cheerleaders. They were headed for a few days of fun to a summer cottage before pursuing their dreams. Exams and the prom behind them, they had their whole lives ahead of them until Tuesday night.​

​

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)​

​

CHO, (voice over): This morning, family and friends are remembering five young women whose lives were tragically cut short less than a week after graduating high school. Bailey Goodman, Meredith McClure, Hannah Congdon, Katie Shirley and Sara Monnat were killed Tuesday night when their SUV crashed head on with a tractor- trailer near Rochester, New York. ​

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The flames resulting from the collision easily reached 50 feet in height, if not greater, singeing electrical lines and burning through cable television and telephone lines. ​

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CHO: They were among a group of nine Fairport High School graduates, most of them varsity cheerleaders, traveling to a summer vacation home. Their friends, driving right behind, saw the crash and the fire. ​

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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The flames were just flying up and the friends of the girls were in our neighbor's yard and they were just screaming and really upset. And that was like the most heart- wrenching thing I've ever experienced. ​

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CHO: Police say the Chevy Trailblazer had just passed a van when it swerved back across the two-lane road into the oncoming tractor- trailer. The truck driver wasn't hurt. He and others tried in vain to rescue the teams trapped in the burning vehicle. ​

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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, I heard the girls yelling oh, my God, you know, we're watching -- you know, they can't get out. They can't get out. ​

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SHERIFF PHIL PROVERO, ONTARIO COUNTY, NEW YORK: This was a -- as I'm sure you're all aware, a horrific accident. Rivaling very few that we have seen in our years here at the Ontario County Sheriff's Office. ​

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(END VIDEOTAPE)​

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CHO: Imagine being the girls who saw it all happened. This accident has devastated the tight-knit community of Fairport, New York, population 6,000. There was a candlelight vigil at the high school and the principal there, John, called this a community nightmare. ​

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ROBERTS: It's just the sort of thing that makes you sick to your stomach.​

​

So you say that they had passed a van. Had they done that successfully? How did they swerve back into traffic? CHO: They did. And, in fact, the friends who saw it all happen said they were next to the van for quite some time. Some were asking, did the van actually speed up so as to avoid not being passed. It appears at this point, according to investigators, that didn't happen. But for some reason, the girls in the SUV successfully passed the van and somehow swerved back into oncoming traffic. Why they did that is still an open question. ​

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John.​

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ROBERTS: And there's nothing left of the vehicle to try to figure out why. ​

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CHO: No. ​

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ROBERTS: Alina, what a terrible story.​

​

CHO: It really is.​

​

ROBERTS: Thanks for bringing it to us.​

Full Story of the crash here:
https://people.com/archive/a-grief-beyond-words-vol-68-no-3/

 

[ForteanHerald143]

This is a list of rare cloud formations. And a brief description of each. No particular order in how ‘rare’ they are though.


(1) Nacreous Clouds

These rare clouds, sometimes called mother-of-pearl clouds, are 15 – 25km (9 -16 miles) high in the stratosphere and well above tropospheric clouds.

They have iridescent colours but are higher and much rarer than ordinary iridescent clouds.

They are seen mostly but not exclusively in polar regions and in winter at high latitudes, Scandinavia, Alaska, Northern Canada. Lower level iridescent clouds can be seen anywhere.

Nacreous clouds shine brightly in high altitude sunlight up to two hours after ground level sunset or before dawn.

Their unbelievably bright iridescent colours and slow movement relative to any lower clouds make them an unmistakable and unforgettable sight.

(2) Mammatus Clouds

Mammatus are pouch-like cloud structures and a rare example of clouds in sinking air. Sometimes very ominous in appearance, mammatus clouds are harmless and do not mean that a tornado is about to form – a commonly held misconception.

In fact, mammatus are usually seen after the worst of a thunderstorm has passed.


(3) Altocumulus Castelanus.

Also known as jellyfish clouds due to their jellyfish-like appearance. These formed around 17,000 ft due to when the rush of moist air comes from the Gulf Stream and gets trapped between layers of dry air. The top of the cloud rises into a jellyfish shape and long tentacles known as “trailing virga” form from rain drops that have evaporated.


(4) Noctilucent Clouds

Noctilucent Clouds or Polar Mesopheric Clouds: This is an extroadinarily rare cloud formation that occurs out on the verge of space between 82km to 102 km from the earth’s surface. Noctilucent clouds appear to be luminous yet they reflect the sunlight from the other side of the earth at night, giving them a glowing appearance

(5) Mushroom Clouds

A mushroom cloud is a distinctive mushroom-shaped cloud of smoke, condensed water vapor, or debris resulting from a very large explosion. They are most commonly associated with nuclear explosions, but any sufficiently large blast will produce the same sort of effect. Volcano eruptions and impact events can produce natural mushroom clouds.

Mushroom clouds form as a result of the sudden formation of a large mass of hot low-density gases near the ground creating a Rayleigh-Taylor instability.

The mass of gas rises rapidly, resulting in turbulent vortices curling downward around its edges and drawing up a column of additional smoke and debris in the center to form its “stem”.

The mass of gas eventually reaches an altitude where it is no longer less dense than the surrounding air and disperses, the debris drawn upward from the ground scattering and drifting back down.


(6)Cirrus Kelvin-Helmholtz

Appearing as a slender, horizontal spiral of cloud, cirrus Kelvin-Helmholtz is one of the most distinctive cloud formations. However, it tends to dissipate only a minute or two after forming and, as a result, is rarely observed.Average height is around 16,500 ft.


(7) Roll Clouds

A roll cloud is a low, horizontal tube-shaped arcus cloud associated with a thunderstorm gust front, or sometimes a cold front. Roll clouds can also be a sign of possible microburst activity.

Cool air sinking air from a storm cloud’s downdraft spreads out across the surface with the leading edge called a gust front.

This outflow undercuts warm air being drawn into the storm’s updraft. As the cool air lifts the warm moist air water condenses creating cloud, which often rolls with the different winds above and below (wind shear).


(8) Shelf Clouds

A shelf cloud is a low, horizontal wedge-shaped arcus cloud, associated with a thunderstorm gust front (or occasionally with a cold front, even in the absence of thunderstorms).

Unlike a roll cloud, a shelf cloud is attached to the base of the parent cloud above it (usually a thunderstorm). Rising cloud motion often can be seen in the leading (outer) part of the shelf cloud, while the underside often appears turbulent, boiling, and wind-torn.

(9) Stratocumulus Clouds

According to the Sapporo Meteorological Observatory, these low-altitude stratocumulus clouds were rolled into long, distinctive ribbons after becoming trapped in air currents.

While it is not uncommon for wind to form such patterns in stratocumulus clouds, photos that clearly show the clouds rolled into strips are rare, says the observatory.

Source : http://listverse.com/2007/10/10/10-rare-cloud-formations/

 

[blessmycottonsocks]

I've witnessed spectacular nacreous clouds twice now this summer - both times whilst playing evening cricket.
Most recent occurrence was last Sunday around 18:30 down here in Hampshire. A large oval wisp of cloud high up in an otherwise almost cloudless sky, with some gorgeous rainbow colours. The sun was heading down in the west (as it does!) and this cloud was in the northern sky. If I hadn't been fielding at the time, I would have tried to take a photo. It gradually faded after around 20 minutes.
According to the Met Office such clouds should be more of a winter and cold air phenomenon but, both my sightings were on very hot evenings.

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/learning/learn-about-the-weather/clouds/nacreous

 

[Yithian]

Loth as I am to drag us slightly askew of the main topic so soon, does anybody know of a good website for learning the names and classifications of the standard clouds? I can look at lists of descriptions all day long and (even with the Latin routes being apparent) the information won't stay put in my mind.

Surely some helpful individual has sone fancy interactive guide? I'm half convinced I once found one with a man falling (seemingly for ever) through every category with pop up descriptions of how and why they appear as they do--can't find it now, of course.

 

[EnolaGaia]

Loth as I am to drag us slightly askew of the main topic so soon, does anybody know of a good website for learning the names and classifications of the standard clouds? I can look at lists of descriptions all day long and (even with the Latin routes being apparent) the information won't stay put in my mind. ...

My first guess would be to check the Cloud Appreciation Society site:

https://cloudappreciationsociety.org

... but I don't see any introductory or tutorial materials listed.