Today's word is...
Nephology (noun) is the study or contemplation of clouds.
Yes, there is a sophisticated study-name for something we wouldn't think of. Cloud studies. That's a thing? Apparently. When I was in college and had to take a science glass (the second worst thing for an English major to have to do. The first thing is math.) I chose the most elementary meterology class for the credit. The most fun I got out of it (if fun there was) was the names of clouds, and what sort of weather they indicate. I couldn't tell you much about that these days, but the names follow me. It isn't prophecy, but it's the shape of things. And it's always a lot of fun to discover a wealth of synonyms and alternative names for clouds instead of, well,
clouds.
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| This fluffy formation here is your basic breed of cumulus. The weather must have been excellent the day I took this picture from my dorm room five years ago. Cumulus clouds develop 2000m above the surface of the earth - in other words, relatively low in the Earth's atmosphere. |
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| Cirrus clouds are clouds formed at 6000m in the atmosphere from tiny ice particals. I always think of them as the brush strokes of God, but I could be overly sentimental. |
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| We have several different layers of clouds here as they gather over campus (see the stadium?). You can see the cumulus gathering into cumulnonimbus (gathering into a storm) with those low-lying nimbostratus clouds darkening the sky. Stratus clouds are thick strata. Cumulus are more often than not fluffy. |
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| In this picture are contrails (yes, the exhaust trails left behind by airplanes are considered clouds), a little cirrus, and what appears to be (from my layman's eye) a smudge of middle-level clouds called altostratus. |
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| This last picture is an awesome sampling of a cumulonimbus, also known as an anvil head or a thunderhead, rising over the bluffs of Fort Robinson, Nebraska. There be a storm a coming! These cumulonimbus clouds are the ones that produce lightning and thunder, rise all the way into the atmosphere and could spawn heaps of trouble, such as hail and tornadoes. |
These are just a few of the many different species of clouds. I find them thought-provoking and perhaps a little prophetic when I am out and about during the day. It takes one silly writer out of herself, to look up and see something brewing up above. There is never a dull moment in this sky.
