Clouds Are But the Cheeks Of Angels

Since I so often see clouds through their reflections on the pond I thought I would feature that view for this weeks 'Clouds' theme for Photo Hunt. These two photo's were taken just moments apart as you can probably tell.

Our current basic nomenclature for clouds was devised by Luke Howard in 1803. He was a British pharmacist and manufacturing chemist by profession, but also an avid amateur meteorologist. He is sometimes recognized as "the father of meteorology". Pretty high accolades for an amateur I would say.

Clouds had been classified in a variety of ways prior to that time. Basically they were categorized by color, such as dark or black or even 'mackeral skies'. Howard brought to them the standardized Latin names that so many of the other sciences had adopted. His basic groups were called cirrus, cumulus, stratus and nimbus, which mean ‘curl of hair’, ‘heap’, ‘layer’ and ‘rain bearing’. Of course the descriptions have been expanded and refined over the years to better identify specific characteristics of clouds by providing information relative to the height of the cloud formations and other factors.

Clouds and meteorology in general were among the last of the common physical phenomena to be addressed by the growing scientific community in that era. The invention of such devices as the microscope, telescope, and various measuring devices brought forth a surge in investigation, analysis, and categorization of the physical environment.

Clouds and weather were difficult to study, however. You couldn't exactly replicate a cloud within a laboratory to study it at the time. A cloud would not fit into the 'cabinet of curiosities' like say insects collected from all over the world. You couldn't visit clouds in various circumstances to inspect them. They weren't available for experimentation. They were difficult to measure and analyze other than by general visual inspection or perhaps modest measurements of weather such as temperature, relative humidity, rainfall, and wind speed. The complex nature of clouds and weather in general has continued to challenge scientists and meteorologists to this day.

But back to our clouds. We can just sit back and enjoy them for what they are, sometimes simple and plain, sometimes colorful and playful, and sometimes majestic and formidable, but always amazing us in the never-ending changes to their complexity and beauty.



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