On the Difficulty of Identifying Clouds

First published April 22nd 2012

I have just come in from taking a few pictures of the sky, after a short and sudden hailstorm. Recently, I have been discussing with a friend, the names and identities of clouds. The spring season is on us, April is delivering the anticipated showery days, and the time seems propitious to nail down some of this esoteric wisdom.

Here is a view looking north from our house.

Cumulonimbus - or possibly Cumulostratus

And here is the opposing southerly view, a few minutes later

Cumulus threatening to be Cumulonimbus

I am reminded once again of how tricky it is to pin down these esoteric names. I have studied the guide ( here it is from the Met Office), and have looked at similar photos of clouds on their website: but I still find it a puzzle to commit between Cumulus, and the lower-level Cumulonimbus. And getting the distinction between Cumulonimbus and Cumulostratus is also a challenge.

In my “northerly” view above, I think I’d  go for Cumulostratus, given that there are no distinctive white cotton-wool edges anywhere … or are there just a few hints of them in there?

In my “southerly” view, we see only the top half of some very fluffy Cumulus – but behind the trees, wno knows what Nimbus awaits?

The philosoper Heraclitus of Ephesus (540-480 BC) teaches that all things are in flux or change. This for him was the case, in spite of what empirical evidence might indicate at times. Nothing is permanent, but everything is constantly becoming something else or going out of existence.
It doesn’t rain much in Ephesus, but I think he must have seen a few clouds in his time.

Met Office guide to cloud types and pronunciations

Source: metoffice.gov.uk