Keep looking up
© Meredith Mullins

Looking Up . . . While Traveling the World

It all started with a mackerel sky—a real-life Magritte painting that rose up in splendor near the foothills of the California Sierra.

I had never seen anything like it before. A sky filled with cotton balls. Dancing sheep. Wayward popcorn.

My first mackerel sky
© Meredith Mullins

I posted the photo on Facebook, feeling like a humble human proud to share the poetic beauty of nature with the world.

It was then I realized I must be cloud deprived. It seemed that most of my friends had seen plenty of mackerel skies before (and even had “altocumulus” at the tip of their tongue). I was clearly behind on the cloud curve.

The lenticular UFO shaped cloud, often found near mountains
© DMT

They had also, in the tradition of Facebook bragging, been privy to some magically dramatic cloud formations, like the lenticular UFO shaped clouds and the mysterious “hole in the sky.” They posted photos that led me into a new world.

A hole in the sky?
© Eric Pearson

Where had I been? When traveling the world, had I failed to look up? Had I failed to realize that clouds are a constantly changing show in whatever country you’re in? And, “Oh, I see.” Even now, their shapes and the interplay with light and color pave the way for flights of the imagination, just as they did when we were kids.

A giant angry bull?
© Eric Pearson

Being One with the Sky

Most of us can remember staring at the sky for hours when we were young, seeing perky poodles, dancing bears, scaly dinosaurs, and exploding volcanoes floating through the atmosphere.

We feel nostalgia for the time spent lying on the grass making up storylines as the crisp-edged cumulus clouds gracefully changed shape and form.

Clearly a baby elephant trying to stand up
© DMT

As Gavin Pretor-Pinney, the founder of the Cloud Appreciation Society, recalls, we were “masters of daydreaming.”

Why not return to that state of bliss?

What animal is peeking out from the clouds?
© Robert Ax/iStock

Pretor-Pinney urges us to return to those childhood days of letting our imagination run wild. Nature’s Rorschach test. What exactly do we see (and why?) when these cloud shapes are forming?

A crocodile eating a python? You be the judge.
© DMT

“Cloudwatching legitimizes doing nothing,” Pretor-Pinney says. It gives us a chance to take a break from “perpetual busy-ness.” We don’t have to work or tweet or Instagram every moment of the day. We can just meditate on the beauty of the sky. It’s good for the soul.

Looking at clouds from all sides now
© DMT

Joni Mitchell encouraged us to look at clouds from both sides now, and The Rolling Stones demanded that we get off of THEIR cloud (“hey you”). But clouds rarely become the main attraction in today’s busy world.

For many people, clouds seem to be visual white noise, a stage-set background for some bigger and better main character. Something less ephemeral.

But clouds can be a main act.

What do you see here?
© Germi_p/iStock

The Science of Clouds

Not all cloudwatching is aimless, however. Clouds give us much information about what weather changes might be coming.

We learned the ten main cloud types in grade school.

Cumulus clouds are the puffy fair-weather clouds that often inspire creative interpretation. They grow into animals, people, and symbols, contained only by the limits of imagination.

Cumulus clouds . . . ready for the imagination
© DMT

Altocumulus clouds (white or gray clumps or rolls) produce the most dramatic and artistic cloudscapes, especially when the sun is low in the sky.

Altocumulus clouds
© DMT

Cirrus clouds look like delicate brushstrokes or wisps of hair (cirrus is Latin for “curl of hair”). This type of cloud can be the first sign of moisture developing and can mean rain in the future.

Cirrus clouds
© DMT

The subtle Cirrostratus and Cirrocumulus are layers of ice crystals high in the sky, so shapes and edges are not common in these formations.

Cirrocumulus clouds
© Meredith Mullins

Some of the low-lying and mid-level gray layer clouds are not as dramatic or popular. Stratus clouds bring fog, Altostratus bring drizzle, and Nimbostratus bring rain.

Stratocumulus is another cloud type destined to lose the popularity contest. It’s the most widespread of cloud types and usually brings overcast days.

We get more dramatic when the Cumulonimbus clouds form—skyscrapers of power announcing a coming storm.

A storm is brewing.
© DMT

A Small World

Somehow, when we realize that every human can look upward and see the same kinds of cloud formations around the world, it unifies us as a planet.

Cloudwatching is something anyone can do. There is no cost. It’s egalitarian.

The clouds may change while traveling around the world—depending on the season, the weather, and the land or sea forms under the clouds. But . . . the sky is everywhere.

All we have to do is to keep looking up.

Sometimes the beauty defies science.
© DMT

OIC Moments welcomes your best cloud photos to inspire our further cloud appreciation. Please share them in the “Comments” section of the OIC Moments Facebook Page.

Find out more about the Cloud Appreciation Society, and view Gavin Pretor-Pinney’s Ted Talk. You can also get a cloudspot app for your phone if you want to become an avid cloud collector.

 For an additional cloudspotting guide, visit the BBC Guide or the Met Office.

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