Cloud Appreciation Society

📣Reminder - TONIGHT - 15 May - 17:00 - 18:00 BST - Free Online Cloud Discussion📣 Head in the Clouds: How the Weather Affects our Minds and Mental Health ​Join Gavin Pretor-Pinney, founder and Member 1 of the Cloud Appreciation Society, for a fascinating online conversation with Trevor Harley, Professor Emeritus of Psychology at the University of Dundee and author of Head in the Clouds. Together, they will explore the subtle but powerful ways that weather shapes our minds, moods, and behaviour – from the uplifting effect of sunshine and rainbows to the psychological impact of storms, seasons, and changing skies. Expect a lively discussion blending science, personal experience, and cloud appreciation, revealing how the atmosphere above us quietly influences the atmosphere within us. ​This online discussion is brought to you by Asterisk Labs and the Cloud Appreciation Society. For more information, follow the link in our bio. Image: The beginning, or the end, of a rainbow, visible amid a swirl of clouds spotted over North Dundas Township, Ontario, Canada by Rachel Leigh.

📣 This Friday - 15 May - Free Online Cloud Discussion📣 Head in the Clouds: How the Weather Affects our Minds and Mental Health ​Join Gavin Pretor-Pinney, founder and Member 1 of the Cloud Appreciation Society, for a fascinating online conversation with @trevor_harley , Professor Emeritus of Psychology at the University of Dundee and author of Head in the Clouds. Together, they will explore the subtle but powerful ways that weather shapes our minds, moods, and behaviour – from the uplifting effect of sunshine and rainbows to the psychological impact of storms, seasons, and changing skies. Expect a lively discussion blending science, personal experience, and cloud appreciation, revealing how the atmosphere above us quietly influences the atmosphere within us. ​This online discussion is brought to you by @asterisk_labs and the Cloud Appreciation Society. To register, follow the link in our bio. Image: Altocumulus lenticularis clouds spotted over Tasmania, Australia by David Jamrozik (Member 65,969).

Nothing subtle going on here! ⛈️ There’s something incredible about watching a thunderstorm from afar — all the drama, rumble and lightning, without getting soaked through. Many people hope for sunshine and clear skies, but as cloudspotters we can't help but love the dramatic Cumulonimbus clouds that can bring heavy downpours and thunderstorms. A Cumulonimbus storm lit by lightning over Nassau, Bahamas spotted by Mike Sharp (Member 19,947).

This week in our Cloud-a-Day emails, we celebrated the life and work of Frederic Edwin Church, whose skies remain some of the most carefully observed in art history. His painting 'Above the Clouds at Sunrise' (1849) invites viewers to peer through glowing bands of rosy Stratocumulus clouds toward a vast sea of Stratus nebulosus below — a scene suspended somewhere between atmosphere and dream. Join us as a member to receive Cloud-a-Day emails directly in your inbox, featuring remarkable skies from artists, photographers, and cloudspotters around the world. Comment 'cloud' and we'll send you the details! Frederic Edwin Church, Above the Clouds at Sunrise, 1849. Oil on canvas, 27 ¼ x 40 ¼ in. (69.2 x 102.3 cm). Private Collection, New York, c/o Fine Art Brokers.

☁️ Cloudspotting 101 - Virga☁️ Virga is like the ghost of rain. It's precipitation that never managed to reach the ground. If the air is warm enough, or dry enough, or both, then water droplets or ice crystals can dissipate long before they land. The result? Sky jellyfish. Clouds with trails that hang below like tendrils, which are often picked up and carried a little by atmospheric currents. Sometimes, a cloud's precipitation can appear to reach all the way to the ground. In this case, the phenomenon is known as praecipitatio, rather than virga. Images: 1. Virga spotted over Schaarbeek, East Flanders Province, Flanders, Belgium by Jannick. 2. Swarm of virga spotted over Tempe, Arizona, US by James Larson (Member 47,520). 3. Virga spotted by Christine Claessens over Chaux-lès-Port in the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté region of eastern France. 4. Altocumulus with virga, spotted over Snowy Monaro, New South Wales, Australia by Hugo Irving (Member 57,711). This one perhaps resembles a humpback whale more than a jellyfish. 5. Altocumulus with virga spotted over Manchester, Michigan, US by Carol Rose Kahn (Member 59,005).

May the 4th be with you. Felix Villagrana spotted Yoda, from Star Wars, in Cumulus form over Iowa, US.

Altocumulus is pretty special. Do you have a favourite cloud type? Let us know! ⬇️ #altocumulus #cloudappreciationsociety #clouds

🌫️ Cloudspotting 101 - Fog🌫️ If the air is cooled enough by the ground or the surface of water, any moisture it contains can condense into droplets, forming fog. This cooling can happen in one of two ways. On long, cold, and clear nights, when there's no cloud cover to keep the warmth in, the ground can rapidly radiate the day's warmth into the night sky. This can cool the air enough to form droplets, and what's known as ‘radiation fog’. If this cold, foggy air forms on raised ground, it can sink downhill where it will pool into ‘valley fog’. Then there’s ‘advection fog’, which can form when the air blows over a warm surface onto a colder surface. This will cause the air to cool, forming fog. If this forms over the ocean, it’s known as ‘sea fog’. Or if cold air blows over a warmer surface of water, water vapour can evaporate off the surface to form ‘steam fog’. There are other types of fog. ‘Upslope fog’; ‘ice fog’; ‘frontal fog’; and many countries have their own local variants too. In his 2015 book Landmarks, for example, nature writer Robert Macfarlane lists a dozen local-dialect terms for types of fog and mist around the British Isles. Most people have heard of the ‘haar’. But what about ‘aggy-jaggers’, a mist forming along the north Kent coast? Or brim’skud, a Shetland word for haze rising like smoke from breaking waves? There’s also ‘fret’ (sea mist or fog on the East and South coasts of England), and ‘woor’ (a Manx term, from the Isle of Man, for low-hanging sea mist). What do they call fog in your area? We’d love to collect as many local variants as possible, so do let us know! Images: 1. Fog potted over Pleasant Valley, Lamoille County, Vermont, United States by kmgoslin. 2. Sea fog, or haar, at Loch Dunvegan, Isle of Skye, Scotland spotted by Lucy Howard-Taylor, daughter of Virginia Howard (Member 48,437). 3. A Supermoon illuminating valley fog spotted over Kneeland, California, US by Nancy Stephenson (Member 50,971). 4. Radiation fog spotted near a meadow in Embarrass, Minnesota, US, by Suzanne Winckler (Member 41,844). 5. Advection fog spotted near Kneeland, California, US, by Nancy Stephenson (Member 50,971) and her cat, Smitty.

‘The tide rises, the tide falls, The twilight darkens, the curlew calls; Along the sea-sands damp and brown The traveller hastens toward the town, And the tide rises, the tide falls.’ From ‘The Tide Rises, the Tide Falls’ (1880) by American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Image: A late afternoon sky of Stratocumulus, Altocumulus, and Cirrus spotted over the Pacific Ocean at Yachats, Oregon, US by Amy Steinkraus (Member 54,121).

Who else prefers the window seat? Cloud spotting from above === Magic

🌀 CloudSpotting 101 - Volutus 🌀 AKA: Roll cloud. A long, low tube of cloud that seems to stretch horizontally from one horizon to the other. Volutus clouds are often the product of storm systems. Think of a volutus as an arcus, or shelf cloud, that has become detached from the storm system that produced it. As the storm dissipates, gusts of cold air can continue to spread out ahead of it, and form a roll of cloud that separates away from the rest of the storm. Volutus clouds roll across the sky at speeds of up to 35 mph (55 km/h). They rotate as they go, but not in the way you might think. Unlike a tube rolling across the ground, which would rotate in a forward motion, volutus clouds instead roll against their direction of travel. They lift at the front of the tube and dip at the back. You can't talk about volutus clouds without talking about the Morning Glory, world famous roll clouds that form over Burketown, North Queensland, Australia. So what's the story? Well, the Morning Glory forms as a result of colliding sea breezes in the Cape York Peninsula. It then moves across the Gulf of Carpentaria, arriving at the coast near Burketown around daybreak, where it provides perfect conditions for glider pilots to surf the sky on smooth and consistent airwaves. Let's give it up for volutus, the glider pilots' delight. You rock, roll cloud. Images: 1. Volutus spotted over Pulaski, Lawrence County, Pennsylvania, United States by b2397. 2. Morning Glory spotted by glider pilot Philip Behnke (Member 55,797) over Burketown, North Queensland, Australia. 3. Volutus spotted by Mark McCaffrey (Member 51,269) on a flight from Riga, Latvia to Tallinn, Estonia over the Gulf of Riga and Baltic Sea. 4. Volutus spotted by Lisbeth Vestergård (Member 52,606) near Samsø Island in the Great Belt strait, Denmark. 5. Another Morning Glory cloud spotted by glider pilot Philip Behnke (Member 55,797) over Burketown, North Queensland, Australia.

Hey, cloud spotters! Stingray? Parrot? Dragon? Or something totally different? 🐋 Tell us what you see!👇😄 Cirrostratus spotted by Robyn Molnar over Estrella Foothills, Arizona, US.