02 June 2009

"Asperatus" clouds


Hanmer Springs, South Island, New Zealand. Photograph: Merrick Davies

Schiehallion in Perthshire, Scotland. Photograph: Ken Prior

No new cloud type has been officially classified since 1951 but Gavin Pretor-Pinney who runs the Cloud Appreciation Society believes that there is a new cloud that deserves international recognition... he is working with the Royal Meteorological Society to have it officially classified by the World Meteorological Organisation in Geneva

The name asperatus comes from the Latin for to roughen or agitate. Virgil used the word in a poem to describe the surface of the sea whipped up by the north wind.

Text credit The Guardian.

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