Throwback Website Wednesday to help you relax

California Cloudscape (Stephen Ingram , Stephen Ingram )

Yesterday was Look Up At The Sky Day and it’s an excellent time in our lives to enjoy nature’s beauty. I wrote about The Cloud Appreciation Society a few months ago, but that was when we were all busy and weren’t looking for distractions! I’m not sure you paid attention then! So I’m bringing it back for today’s blog because when you join ($40 a year) you not only get a beautiful cloud pic emailed to you every day, you also get an explanation which can be used for stay-at-home learning. For instance, the cloudscape above came to me today with this explanation:

Snowscape or cloudscape? It’s both. After a rare winter snowfall in Owens Valley, California, US, the Inyo Mountains and Sierra Nevada foothills were carpeted in glittering white. Stephen Ingram (Member 7,328) hiked to an elevation of 1,950 metres (6,397 feet), just above the low-lying clouds, to capture the subtle boundary between the sparkling undulations of snow and those in a sea of Stratus beyond.

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Every cloud that arrives in your email has a wonderful bit of learning, like this from Sunday:

When a moist, stable airstream is forced up and over mountain peaks, it cools and the water vapour it contains condenses, forming clouds. These clouds can hug the top of the mountain like a woolly hat and are known as cap clouds. The ones in this Antarctic scene are flanked by small Cumulus that have developed in the more turbulent fringes of the mountain airflow. If you look carefully, you can see the tops of the smooth cap clouds have a slightly stacked appearance. Within the airstream, a drier layer is sandwiched between layers of moister air above and below. Droplets don't form so readily in this drier gap, and so the formation is separated into slightly distinct caps, one above the other. This is the cloud equivalent of going out wearing two hats at once. Which is probably a good idea in Antarctica.

This is a de-stressing, cheerful way to start each morning and, as far as I can tell, my email has not been compromised and none of the pictures come with ads. So I highly recommend The Cloud Appreciation Society! Check it out!

BTW, I’m actually off today through Friday to really, really unplug! In a world we once knew, we would have been in Barcelona this week. Alas, we went from Barcelona to All Alona....what a Spain in the neck. Oh well, stay healthy and wash those hands!

Frank


About the Authors

KPRC 2's chief meteorologist with four decades of experience forecasting Houston's weather.

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