Clouds Clouds and Cloudsss...

Flogos will take your marketing to the skies, and then some. It'll shape your logotype into a "cloudy" mixture of soap-based foam and helium - and send it off to drift for miles, as high as 6 kilometers up - a "wolf of commercialism" in fluffy sheep clothing.

There are definitely some enticing possibilities; for example, instead of displaying Apple logo inside a store window "prison" -


(image credit: Cyndy Sims Parr)

Extreme and Beautiful Weather

Majestic Skies Created by Powerful Storms

The good old Nature kept giving the photographers great opportunities for stunning shots. Problem is, great celestial displays are often followed by some nasty storms... which hardly anybody would want to witness firsthand.

We'll start with a "Clouds Beauty Contest". Most sources are listed directly under the photos, though some original credits remain unknown. We mentioned "Clouds Appreciation Society" as a premier destination for cloud-watchers & photographers before, and it remains the "one-stop" website with more and more spectacular submissions every day. Among the other sources of this article, you will see a few examples out of thousands worthy pictures displayed there.

Cloud "Explosions" - Cumulonimbus cloud formations, building up to powerful storms.






(photos credit: Karen Titchener, Cloud Aprreciation Society)


(photo credit: Mike Adkinson)


(image credit: "King Herald" Paul)


(photo credit: Cobalt Osanga)

Crown of Glory:

(photo credit: John Deed)

In this picture both lenticular and mammatus clouds combine in one crazy rippled texture, after the passing of a powerful storm:


(photo credit: Martha Tenney)

A storm front moves over Niagara Falls Air Reserve Station:


((U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Master Sgt. Ray Lloyd))

Clouds with an interesting shapes:

Angel wings -

(original unknown)

This picture was sent to us by Greg Hewgill.
He describes it as a trail left from a missile test:


(photo by Greg Hewgill)

Watching clouds & seeing shapes becomes a theme in the "Amelie" movie:
("Le Fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain") -




It also shows how easy it is to make these shapes by Photoshop. The following series of pictures, though, is definitely real and appeared in Daily Mail. The most unusual ones are "the six-legged sky pig":


(photo by Ian Loxley)

and a "head of the sky dragon":


(photo by Felicity Norman)


Tornados & Wall Clouds

First, the most fantastic picture - the storm structure captured in its entirety, over Red Cloud, Nebraska. The linked page describes the damage that was wreaked by the accompanying tornado.


(image credit: Doug Raflik)

The blackness is palpable in this picture:
(and yes, there is 500-meter wide tornado in there somewhere)


(image credit: Ryan McGinnis)

A wall cloud developing under the anvil of a powerful storm is often a tornado waiting to happen... as seen on these ominous pictures:


(image credit: Colin Morris)

Over Veghel, NoordBrabant, Holland:


(image credit: Roel Kouwenberg)




(original unknown)

Tornados & Rainbows At Once


(image credit: Jurg Beeli, Cloud Aprreciation Society)

We are also reminded by the saying on his site that "It's hard to enjoy the fascination of storm chasing when people are getting hurt" (Alan Moller), so the combination of rainbows and tornadoes is really quite symbolic.

More recent shots of tornadoes, unfortunately uncredited:




(original unknown)


Rachel Rusinski took the following two pictures of Midwest storm looming over the plains in the morning. Right place + right time = amazing photography...




(images credit: Rachel Rusinski)

A couple of particularly spectacular lenticulars:
(or lenticular spectaculars)
Here is the "mother ship" over Lake Tahoe:


(image credit: Bryan Hightower)

Over Nairn in Scotland:


(image credit: Ulrich Brieger)

The winter is coming. Look up to see the dancing northern lights:



Northern lights over the erupting volcano!



The photo above came from the most fascinating collection of northern lights pictures by Sigurour H. Stefnisson. Make sure to click on this link to enjoy their beauty.


Nacreous Clouds

Nacreous Clouds, or Mother-of-Pearl Clouds are a pretty common sight in the northern countries (like the ones shown here over Norway), when the sun is low on the horizon in December and January. They are also called "polar stratospheric clouds". They are best visible in the early dawn of after dusk, because they reflect sunlight from below the horizon (due to their extreme altitude and curvature of the Earth). They also play a certain role in decreasing the ozone layer by bringing up the gaseous nitric acid and disturbing the delicate cycles of the stratosphere.


(image credit: Derrick Rethans)


(image credit: Pvv.org)

Cloud Wave

Finally something rarely seen and truly strange: Cloud's "Gravity Wave".
Time-lapse photography captures a huge rolling huge wave, consisting of smaller clouds. "A gravity wave is... a wave moving through a stable layer of the atmosphere. Think of a rock being thrown into a pond. Ripples or circles migrate from the point the rock hits the water. An up and down motion is created." (Tama, Iowa KCCI-TV webcam on 6 May 2007)

13 Incredible Arcus Clouds

Massive shelf cloud over Saskatchewan, tinged orange by the rising sun
Image: Jeff Kerr

Seeing a shelf cloud, as impressive as it might be, usually means one thing – run for cover! Like most forbearers of bad weather, what we see from below is just the tip of the iceberg as shelf clouds are attached to a much larger cloud system, usually bringing thunderstorms or cold fronts. Roll clouds, on the other hand, are the gentle giants of the cloud world.

Like an eyelid gently closing over the landscape – a weak shelf cloud in Swifts Creek, Victoria, Australia:

Image: Fir0002

Nothing gentle here – a shelf cloud enveloping the Australian town of Wagga Wagga before bringing a thunderstorm:

Image: Bidgee

Arcus cloud is the term used for a low, horizontal cloud formation associated with thunderstorm or cold front outflows. The two types of arcus clouds are shelf clouds and roll clouds; as their names suggest they are vastly different in appearance and generation.

Composition in pink and blue – a shelf cloud bringing Moscow turbulent weather:

Image: Chesnok

Shelf clouds are attached to their parent cloud, usually a thunderstorm-bringing cumulonimbus cloud. Unlike wall clouds, the cloud phenomenon they are often confused with, shelf clouds bring the storm along while wall clouds appear at the end of it.

Parting the skies – shelf cloud over Enschede, Netherlands:

Image: John Kerstholt

Here, a quite similar divide into good/bad weather zone:

Image: Longyester

The shelf cloud diagram below shows with blue arrows how the cold air descending from a cumulonimbus meets the warm and moist air in the environment (red arrows). Because the cold pool is denser, the warmer, moist air is forced upward and its humidity condenses into a shelf cloud.

Image: Pierre cb

Shelf cloud over the Baltic Sea close to Øland, Sweden:

Image: Arnold Paul

Is that an eagle’s face? Shelf cloud over Warsaw:

Image: Dariusz Wierzbicki

Roll clouds are just as amazing cloud phenomena. Unlike shelf clouds, they are completely detached from their parent cumulonimbus cloud. And unlike wall clouds, they are not likely to morph into tornadoes. Phew!

Textbook roll cloud over Las Olas Beach in Maldonado, Uruguay:

Image: Daniela Mirner Eberl

Impressive roll cloud stretching over the fields of Albany, MO and into the horizon:

Image: Dan Bush

Long cloud formations like roll clouds are rare as they require uniform cloud formation along an extended front. Roll clouds usually form near advancing cold fronts whose downdraft causes moist warm air to rise, then cool below its dew point and thus form a cloud.

Like a giant plantain? Roll cloud over a beach in Yucatan, Mexico:

Image: Sensenmann

Even cars speeding on Germany’s autobahn can’t escape this roll cloud:

Image: Daniel Schwen

A bit of a cloud aberration is the Morning Glory cloud, an extremely long and rare roll cloud that has so far only been observed over Northern Australia’s Gulf of Carpentaria, the Mexican Sea of Cortez and Nova Scotia. It can reach a length of up to 1000 km and a height of 1 to 2 km. Often accompanied by sudden gusts of wind, the Morning Glory cloud can move at speeds of up to 60 km/h. Strong sea breezes and high humidity seem to further the formation of a Morning Glory cloud but despite being extensively studied, this meteorological phenomenon is not yet clearly understood.

Triple roll cloud or morning glory cloud over Queensland, Australia:

Image: Mick Petroff

We could be staring at clouds all day but, well, enough of cloud gazing and back to work.

Sources: 1, 2, 3

Jets, Contrails and Condensation Clouds: A new dance in the sky

More and more high-altitude vapour trails appear in the skies, as the flight density of commercial aviation increases. They follow the jet straight and narrow, but then degrade into fuzzy formations, blending as one with the clouds and into our subconscious. We almost do not notice them any more. The following photos show, however, that even the common engine's exhaust contrail can be worth a second glance.





Contrail, or "Vapor Trail", forming at high altitudes. Contrails generated by engine exhaust are, of course, linked with pollution, but the visible white streams in the sky made from plane's "wing-tip vortices" are essentially ice crystals and pure condensation trails. "Being composed of water, the are not, in and of themselves, air pollution."(wiki)








(images credit: Laurent Malbecq)


USAF F-15 Eagle Fighters Intercept Two Soviet MiG-29 Fighters:


(image credit: Staff Sgt. Kevin L. Bishop, USAF)



(image credit: Strange Vehicles)


"Fly me to the Moon"

(image credit: Barry McGrath)

...or out of the Sun

(original unknown)


Some shooting (or launching decoys) also produces interesting trails:










The amazing cloud "downwash effect" from a passing jet plane:



(image credit: Strange Vehicles.com)



(image credit: Daniel Koury)






(images credit: Checksix-forums)


Breaking the Sound Barrier: Transonic Cloud Effects

Going over the sound barrier produces one of the most amazing condensation effects - so called "Prandtl-Glauert Condensation Clouds", formed by the rapid cooling of the air. You have to be really quick with your camera "trigger" to capture it, as it only occurs at the sonic barrier. This page has many photographs and videos of this phenomena.

F/A-18F Super Hornet streaks past the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Kitty Hawk in the Philippine Sea:

(U.S. Navy photo by Petty Officer 3rd Class Jonathan Chandler)


Skilled pilots can actually control where this cloud appears:
"It is possible to work the plane's throttle to move the shock wave forward or aft." (source)

(U.S. Navy photo by Ensign John Gay)





F-14 completes a super-sonic flyby:

(U.S. Navy photo by Communication Specialist 3rd Class Jarod Hodge)














Rainbow on the Clouds

Perhaps the most sublime is the rainbow/shadow combination, forming on the vapor and clouds around a passing jet.


(original unknown)


image credit: Jeff Well, Airliners.net