My last post celebrated cloud lovers and how they shook the science world with their cell phones. They discovered 12 clouds now listed in the International Cloud Atlas—the first officially recognized in 30 years. Now it’s time to meet these strange new clouds filling the skies.
Clouds recognized since 1986. Source: NOAA.
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The World Meteorological Organization originally recognized only 10 types (genera) of clouds and organized them by form and height, with genus, species and varieties just like plants and animal classifications. Thanks to devoted amateurs and good cell phone pictures, they have discovered a whole new species and 11 varieties. They fit these new clouds in the old genus groups and have given them complicated Latin names.
The burrito of the sky: the volutus. Source: WMO.
The biggest change to the atlas is the volutus, a whole new species. This cloud is the burrito of the sky, formed when the cold upper air drops and rolls the warm, moist air to form a long, horizontal cylinder.
The Doomsday cloud: Undulatus Asperatus Source: NASA. Credit Witta Priester.
The rest of the clouds are species with the first and most popular addition being the scary-looking Undulatus Asperatus (Latin for “billowing roughness”). They were the first new cloud identified since 1951. Discovered by Gavin Pretor-Pinney in 2006, the Cloud Appreciation Society has been pushing for their official scientific recognition ever since.
The other new clouds are either Supplements (odd attachments), “Special” (weirdly created) or Accessory. The next blog will do the Frankenstein “Special” clouds and the latest accessory. This blog will show you the peculiar Supplement clouds. Probably the most fun of these in the Fluctus wave clouds that look like they were created by a cartoon artist. Then there is the Cavum or “hole-punch” cloud. The cauda cloud is a horizontal, non-spinning tail. More familiar to “Tornado Alley” residents is the real “Doomsday” cloud, the murus or wall cloud, with its turbulent winds that can create tornadoes.
Surfs Up with Fluctus clouds! Source: WMO.
The Holy, holy, holy Cavum cloud Source: Wikimedia.
A deadly murus or wall cloud spawning a twister (bottom left) and cauda or tail cloud (bottom right) Source WMO.
There are more pictures stored on the internet, in the cloud!
James J. Garriss
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Beautiful shots; it really seems to be a matter of being in the right place, at the right time and a camera ready. With most of the most bizarre clouds I ever saw I didn't have a camera with me .... These cloud pics are great; anyone who reckons these are chemtrails probably never looked up in the sky before it first began to become polluted with chemtrails. Maybe some people believe that before chemtrails the sky was cloudless.
Your "new" clouds are called chemtrails. The government is finally slowly admitting that they are and have been spraying the public for years with loads of chemicals. Youtube search for chemtrails next time you see some unusual clouds in the sky.
Really? New Clouds . It's called Geoengineering. Ask Rosalind Peterson Agricultural Defense Coalition.
What a pleasure to see these new clouds! I do hope I'll see the eagle one one of these days. During last night's sunset there were some interesting ones; whether they were new or not they were very beautiful. Thanks for posting
Thank you so much for this post. I have always been interested in clouds. I have also noticed newer looking clouds in the last couple of years.
