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I was able to have time to photograph the photograph after a long time. The Japanese season now is very unpleasant by hot high humidity. This season is called 'tuyu' in Japan. But the early evening is a beautiful season by cloud and sunset.
Like cream mixing in a cup of coffee, atmospheric winds swirl clouds into eye appealing patterns determined by mixing boundaries and turbulence. Note also the subtle iridescence at the bottom edge of the cloud created by diffraction of light through the cloud droplets.
In meteorology, a cloud is an aerosol comprising a visible mass of minute liquid droplets, frozen crystals, or particles suspended in the atmosphere above the surface of a planetary body. The droplets and crystals may be made of water or various chemicals. On Earth, clouds are formed as a result of saturation of the air when it is cooled to its dew point, or when it gains sufficient moisture (usually in the form of water vapor) from an adjacent source to raise the dew point to the ambient temperature. They are seen in the Earth's homosphere (which includes the troposphere, stratosphere, and mesosphere). Nephology is the science of clouds which is undertaken in the cloud physics branch of meteorology.
There are two methods of naming clouds in their respective layers of the atmosphere; Latin and common. Cloud types in the troposphere, the atmospheric layer closest to Earth's surface, have Latin names due to the universal adaptation of Luke Howard's nomenclature. Formally proposed in 1802, it became the basis of a modern international system that divides clouds into five physical forms that appear in any or all of three altitude levels (formerly known as étages). These physical types, in approximate ascending order of convective activity, include stratiform sheets, cirriform wisps and patches, stratocumuliform layers (mainly structured as rolls, ripples, and patches), cumuliform heaps, and very large cumulonimbiform heaps that often show complex structure. The physical forms are divided by altitude level into ten basic genus-types. The Latin names for applicable high-level genera carry a cirro- prefix, and an alto- prefix is added to the names of the mid-level genus-types. Most of the genera can be subdivided into species and further subdivided into varieties.
Two cirriform clouds that form higher up in the stratosphere and mesosphere have common names for their main types. They are seen infrequently, mostly in the polar regions of Earth. Clouds have been observed in the atmospheres of other planets and moons in the Solar System and beyond. However, due to their different temperature characteristics, they are often composed of other substances such as methane, ammonia, and sulfuric acid as well as water.
Taken as a whole, homospheric clouds can be cross-classified by form and level to derive the ten tropospheric genera and the two additional major types above the troposphere. The cumulus genus includes three species that indicate vertical size. Clouds with sufficient vertical extent to occupy more than one altitude level are officially classified as low- or mid-level according to the altitude range at which each initially forms. However they are also more informally classified as multi-level or vertical.
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Yesterday's post had a bit of color. I decided to up the ante today. Found this little beauty in a residential neighborhood in Kansas City.
This huge cloud had caught my eye on our trek to Reiek peak in Mizoram.
Reiek is a tourist spot some 29 kms from Aizawl,the capital of Mizoram.The peak has an altitude of around 5000 feet and commands magnificent views over the surrounding mountains and valleys and also of distant Aizawl.