ASPERATUS – NEW TYPE OF CLOUDS?
filed in FUN STUFF, GREEN on Dec.02, 2009
The image above could be our new type of cloud and if it is it classify as a new one, it would be the first addition to the World Meteorological Organization’s cloud atlas since 1951. They call this 5th cloud, ASPERATUS.
These choppy clouds could be examples of the first new type of cloud to be recognized since 1951. Or so hopes Gavin Pretor-Pinney, founder of the Cloud Appreciation Society.
The British cloud enthusiast said he began getting photos of “dramatic” and “weird” clouds (including the above) in 2005 that he didn’t know how to define.
A few months ago he began preparing to propose the odd formations as a new cloud variety to the UN’s World Meteorological Organization, which classifies cloud types.
Pretor-Pinney jokingly calls it the “Jacques Cousteau cloud,” after its resemblance to a roiling ocean surface seen from below. But the cloud fan has proposed a “formal,” Latin name: Undulatus asperatus—roughly, “a very turbulent, violent, chaotic form of undulation,” explained Pretor-Pinney, author of the new Cloud Collector’s Handbook.
Margaret LeMone, a cloud expert with the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, said that she has taken photos of asperatus clouds intermittently over the past 30 years.
Source: National Geographic
I think of all the clouds, I like this one better. There is more to it if you look closely. You could feel it moving, going to form a new shape. It is like it wants to go somewhere or chasing someone. I hope to see this type of clouds someday…. Ooops I just checked outside. Sorry but Cirrus clouds again… thanks to jynxedpanda for this.
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