Amateur cloud-spotters lobbied to add this beautiful new cloud to the International Cloud Atlas

[n2doc]

Gavin Pretor-Pinney, the London-based president of the Cloud Appreciation Society, first saw the unusual cloud in 2006. A member of the amateur cloud-spotting group in Cedar Creeks, Iowa emailed a photo of an oddly wavy cloud, and asked how it would be classified.

“Here was this weird turbulent wave cloud,” Pretor-Pinney recalls. “It looked like you were beneath the surface of the sea on a really choppy, rough day when the sea surface is being churned about.”

Its shape was similar to what the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) would categorize as an undulatus formation, but was “more intense, more chaotic.” The WMO’s International Cloud Atlas, first published in 1896, didn’t include anything like it.

Every six months or so, a similar image would arrive, maybe from Scotland, or Australia. The president and others began to feel that a new label was needed to fit the unfamiliar cloud. In 2008, the amateur cloud-spotting group proposed the name asperitas, Latin for “roughness,” and submitted the idea to the WMO.

more
https://qz.com/942065/the-beautiful-new-cloud-asperitas-has-been-officially-recognized-in-the-international-cloud-atlas/

[3catwoman3]

1. I t looks like a cross between...

...a Monet and a Van Gogh - stunning!

[bettyellen]

3. I just sent this to an artist friend who always paints scenics with amazing skies.

[procon]

2. Very unusual clouds, and they do resemble ocean waves.

Thanks, I learned something new, and bonus, it was also beautiful to see.

[keithbvadu2]

4. Long rolls of knitting yarn

[BlancheSplanchnik]

5. Pretty! Increased turbulence...I guess we have climate change to thank.

It is gorgeous, though. The sunset (sunrise?) colors make it lovely.

The Cloud Appreciation Society. I like that!

[gilbert sullivan]

6. Many years ago when I taught meterology we called them

rolling stratocumulus.

[warmfeet]

7. Gorgeous!