Is A New Cloud Category On The Horizon?

(AP)  Looking out the 11th floor window of her law office, Jane Wiggins did a double take and grabbed her camera. The dark, undulating clouds hovering outside were unlike anything she'd seen before.

"It looked like Armageddon," said Wiggins, a paralegal and amateur photographer in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. "The shadows of the clouds, the lights and the darks, and the greenish-yellow backdrop. They seemed to change."

They dissipated within 15 minutes, but the photo Wiggins captured in June 2006 intrigued - and stumped - a group of dedicated weather watchers who now are pushing weather authorities to create a new cloud category, something that hasn't been done since 1951.

Breaking into the cloud family would require surviving layers of skeptical international review. Still, Gavin Pretor-Pinney and his England-based Cloud Appreciation Society are determined to establish a new variety. They've given Wiggins' photo and similar pictures taken in different parts of the world to experts in England, and are discussing the subject fervently online.

"They (the clouds) were the first ones that I noted of this type and I was unsure which category to put them under," said Pretor-Pinney, author of "The Cloudspotter's Guide." "When we put pictures up online we list the category, and I wasn't sure how to categorize it."

Some scientists are skeptical. They argue that researchers who have long watched the sky haven't seen anything distinctly new for decades.

There are three main groups of clouds: cumulous, cirrus and stratus. Each has various sub-classifications built on other details of the formation.

Brant Foote, a longtime scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., said the clouds photographed by Wiggins already fit into the existing cumulous classification.

But Pretor-Pinney, who never studied meteorology, believes the clouds merit their own cumulus sub-classification. He proposes they be called altocumulus undulatus asperatus. The last word - Latin for roughen or agitate - is a reference to the clouds' undulating surface.

"Not necessarily gentle or steady, but quite violent-looking, turbulent, almost twisted in its appearance," he said.

The group has compiled several photographs documenting the formations from the billowy, rolling clouds shot by Wiggins in Iowa to ones from New Zealand that were much more menacing, hanging lava-like in the sky.

Foote said it would be "very unusual" for such a formation to be recognized as a new variety of cloud.

"People have been looking at clouds for hundreds of years and the general cloud classification is well-defined," Foote said. "It's not as if someone discovered a new plant in the Amazon. It's what you've seen every day. There was no atmospheric condition that caused a new kind of cloud to form."

Pretor-Pinney is working with the Royal Meteorological Society in Reading, England, to prepare his case. If that group signs off, the proposal will go to the United Nation's World Meteorological Organization in Geneva.

Society executive director Paul Hardaker said a small panel within the society is gathering evidence to review. Their efforts include talking with those who took the submitted photos to determinine when, where and amid what weather they were taken. Hardaker said meteorologists tend to be skeptical of such proposals.

"We like to believe that just about everything that can be seen has been, but you do get caught once in a while with the odd, new, interesting thing," Hardaker said. "By this stage we think it's sufficiently interesting to explore it further and we're optimistic about the information we've got."

[paddyhayes]

We used to have clouds like that all the time. And a strange odor.

Then my son moved out and the living room cleared back up.

[brianbwb-2009]

"...The dark, undulating clouds hovering outside were unlike anything she'd seen before..."

Perhaps she hasn't looked out her window very often, this is quite a common sight. depending on the extent of the cloud, it appears to be either stratocumulus (if it is a general, sky cover) or early cumulonimbus, also called a "thunderhead", depending on the shape of the entire cloud, and it's reach into the higher layers of atmosphere.

"Tornado" clouds also have a similar appearance, a downward-boiling, greenish hued formation, and those are usually of type cumulonimbus.

The photo of the bottom layer of a cloud cannot determine the classification, the entire cloud is usually considered.

[retiredgustav]

Here in Southeast Texas we get clouds like that all the time . Whenever my wife and I would go flying off in my Cessna she would call them "Mean Clouds'. That accurately described them a we flew through them.

[pensacola8-2009]

The clouds seen in the photo are formed from low altitude temperature inversions combined with prevailing mountain wave winds which can be up to 200 miles away or more. The mountain wave winds are seen more frequently during El Nino years when shearing winds often form at 20,000-24,000 feet and pass over mountain ranges. It is common to see this when cold fronts overtake warm fronts and the winds come from the same direction as a mountain range. Very similar clouds were spotted in San Antonio, Texas in 2003.

Lots of rain expected in the next few months....not excluding a disasterous flood in the Des Moines area this August.

[Oregon_State_OSU]

The were Clouds from GOD sent to Cedar Rapids warning them of their doom in the future & warning them of their sins. I am sure Pat Robertson and the Nut Jobs at the 700 Club will go off the deep end about this and say its Doom and Gloom & Hell Fire and Brimstone from God.

Posted by Oregon_State_OSU at 11:31 AM : Jun 12, 2009

Must be reaction to Gay Marriage.
Posted by bannednancy

No Not Gay Marriage but,,,, its a Reaction because Sarah Palin is so Stupid and thinks that David Letterman owes somebody a big "I am Sorry" I made a joke about your disfunctional Family Sarah Palin. The atmosphere reacted because she is so REEETARDED ! & will do anything to keep her name in the News.

[quapawsix]

If this is the end days when is it we rise victorious?

[mjvwsr]

exciting stuff here CBS

[Oregon_State_OSU]

I have to say it before any Bible Banger says and make sure I give credit to a SuperNatural Power.

The were Clouds from GOD sent to Cedar Rapids warning them of their doom in the future & warning them of their sins. I am sure Pat Robertson and the Nut Jobs at the 700 Club will go off the deep end about this and say its Doom and Gloom & Hell Fire and Brimstone from God.

OH PLEASE >>> They were just strange Clouds created by nature and God had NOTHING to do with it.

[dartplayer501]

The fact the USAF sends up tankers to spray barrium and aluminum at high altitude almost daily, is a proven fact.

Posted by tbbaot

Proven by whom??? (And I don't mean "articles on the internet).

[dartplayer501]

"Chemtrails" are a conspiracy theory perpetuated by people who don't know a condensation trail when they see one. Ever since it's birth in 1996, "the 'Chemtrail' hoax has been investigated and refuted by many established and accredited universities, scientific organizations, and major media publications."