After two straight days of clear blue skies (oh, my life is soooo hard) I finally caught a photo of a new cloud to share.
Introducing . . . Cirrocumulus!
A patch of cirrocumulus high in the sky over my street.
Not only is this bad boy worth 40 points in my Cloud Collector’s Handbook, reading the description introduced me to my new favorite word: “cloudlet”.
A cirrocumulus cloud is actually composed of many little cloudlets, which gives it what the Handbook calls a “grainy” appearance, but looks to me more like foam left on the beach by a receding wave.
How does one tell a cloudlet from a cloud? Stand back for the super-complicated scientific method here: the cloudlet must be smaller than your pinkie finger when your hand is held out at arm’s length.
The cloudlets that make up cirrocumulus are made of tiny ice crystals – it’s too cold for water where these clouds live, usually more than five miles above our heads.
Cirrocumulus are also uncommon and evanescent – these fair weather fellows dissipate quickly, hence the high point value. Glad I took a moment to look up!
I am so excited to be learning this info by reading the kind of material I love so much. And the accompanying photos that you, yourself, have shot lend the critical “real life” factor. Dang! It just came to me: there won’t be any pop quizzes.
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