DailyDirt: More Clouds & Rainbows

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Unusual cloud formations and strangely diffracted sunlight are fascinating phenomena, and more amateur photographers are capturing these ephemeral meteorological events all the time now. So instead of chasing chemtrail conspiracy theories, we can document weird-looking patterns in the sky and try to figure out how/why they happen. Here are just a few examples of some crowdsourced meteorology.

• The International Cloud Atlas is considering including pictures of wavy clouds, called undulatus asperatus and documented by the Cloud Appreciation Society (CAS). These wavy clouds could be the first new type of cloud added to the official cloud record since 1951. [url]
• Here's a gallery of a variety of rainbows and some other cool-looking artifacts of the sky (eg. fogbows and sundogs). If cute pictures can increase worker productivity, maybe rainbows can, too. [url]
• Pretty clouds make for great pictures, but they might also precede some pretty bad weather. Actinoform clouds can only be seen properly from space, as they spread over a hundred miles across the sky. [url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post.

Filed Under: clouds, international cloud atlas, meteorology, rainbows, weather