Kudos to Matthew Cobb for recently sending me a bunch of nice links. And here, thanks to his detective work, are a few photos from “An atlas of incredible clouds” at Wired.co.uk. Go look at the larger versions (they’d make great screensavers); there are seven, and I’ll show four (all photos credited to “Rex Features”).
Noctilucent cloud:
Lenticular cloud, Mauna Kea, Hawaii (these are my favorite clouds):
Supercell thunderstorm:
Cumulonimbus cloud over western Africa:
If that first one isn’t a space launch, I’ll eat my hat.
Some good photographs of impressive phenomena, certainly.
b&
Well it isn’t a natural noctilucent cloud in any case. Rocket launch looks like an obvious explanation, and I guess one could argue that then it would be an artificial noctilucent cloud…
I think there’s also some evidence that noctilucent clouds have become more common after the start of the space era, but I don’t have any reference on hand.
sciencephotolibrary Caption:-
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Thanks!
Glad I don’t have to go out and buy a hat, just to eat it….
Cheers,
b&
You live in AZ and don’t already own 6 big ones?
No, I’ve only got two big ones.
Oh — you mean hats. Sorry….
Never did like hats. I grew up in Northern California and only came here to go to school. As with virtually everybody else in Arizona, even those born here, I’m not a native, you see….
b&
The second one must be a UFO 🙂
Beautiful phenomena, wonderful photography.
Sure, provide cover for the extraterrestrial invasion by giving up a token fall guy.
Now deny that you work for the CIA.
Is the CIA still employing? I sure wouldn’t mind a job with them if I don’t have to tell anyone where and for who I work!
Denial noted.
The SIS are busy looking, though to really ‘get on’ an old fashioned & mostly defunct “whom” still beats “who” ~ along with a private education, money & an easy familiarity with 8 Herbert Crescent & 37 St James’s Street 🙂
I will definitely look for the SIS careers.
If we didn’t know it was a light-fixture, I’d have said Adamski modelled his on one of those.
Sorry, Adamski.
Both Sides Now reference noted.
Yes, I was sure I would be the only one . . .
I thought everyone would get it.
I subconsciously assumed it was so well known there was nothing to ‘get’ – a bit like ‘methinks it is like a weasel’ or suchlike.
Or maybe my brain was just idling along in neutral as usual…
I think the last one is God’s giant Communion wafer, reminding all of us to eat his son’s body.
It’s Sunday, after all.
You know? I’ve looked at clouds from both sides now, but still somehow…I really don’t know clouds at all.
Are you sure you tried up AND down?
“like a floating question why”
Cloudy by Simon and Garfunkle
I’ve always loved the names that are given to clouds, so we should all give thanks to Luke Howard, an Englishman who lived in the late 18th- early 19th-centuries, who first tried to classify and name them:
http://www.wrh.noaa.gov/fgz/science/clouds.php
I mean, really, what’s not to love about the word ‘cumulonimbus’?
The lenticular cloud is captioned as having been photographed on Mauna Kea, Hawaii. There’s snow on Mauna Kea?
Mauna Kea Ski Resort Webcam
Wiki :-
Thanks so much for that link. I was just plain ignorant of that aspect of the Hawaiian environment. Too many volcanic eruption pictures, I guess.
That first cloud picture is the vapor trail from a rocket launch — I’ve seen similar off Vandenberg AFB in California.
If the religions were as you understand them to be, nobody ever would have believed them.
this might have actually been appended to the wrong column. It was directed at the John Haught criticism.