GhostOfCaptSpaulding
06-05-2009, 01:27 PM
[offsite:14o5x310]The cloud with no name: Meteorologists campaign to classify unique 'Asperatus' clouds seen across the world
Whipped into fantastical shapes, these clouds hang over the darkening landscape like the harbingers of a mighty storm.
But despite their stunning and frequent appearances, the formations have yet to be officially recognised with a name.
They have been seen all over Britain in different forms - from Snowdonia to the Scottish Highlands - and in other parts of the world such as New Zealand, but usually break up without producing a storm.
Stunning but undefined: The clouds loom over the skies of New Zealand - but unfortunately words can't describe this dramatic vision from the heavens
And some experts believe the stormy weather phenomenon deserves its very own classification.
Experts at the Royal Meteorological Society are now attempting to make it official by naming it 'Asperatus' after the Latin word for 'rough'.
If they are successful, it would be the first variety of cloud formation to be given a new label in over half a century
'It is a bit like looking at the surface of a choppy sea from below,' said Gavin Pretor-Pinney, founder of the Cloud Appreciation Society, who identified the cloud from photographs sent in by members.
'We try to identify and classify all of the images of clouds we get in, but there were some that just didn't seem to fit in any of the other categories, so I began to think it might be a unique type of cloud.'
He added: 'The underside of the clouds are quite rough and choppy. It looks very stormy, but some of the reports we have been getting suggest that they tend to break up without actually turning into a storm.'
The Royal Meteorological Society is now gathering detailed information for the days and locations where the asperatus clouds have been seen in an attempt to understand exactly what is causing them.
Officials will then apply to the UN's World Meteorological Organisation in Geneva to have the new cloud type considered for addition into the International Cloud Atlas, the system used by meteorologists across the globe.
Professor Paul Hardaker, Chief Executive of the RMS, said: 'There would probably need to be quite a lot of heat around to produce the energy needed to generate such dramatic cloud formations.
'They are quite dark structures so there must be a lot of water vapour condensing in the cloud.'
MailOnline | The cloud with no name: Meteorologists campaign to classify unique 'Asperatus' clouds seen across the world (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1189877/The-cloud-Meteorologists-campaign-classify-unique-Asperatus-clouds-seen-world.html)[/offsite:14o5x310]
Click the link above for more dramatic pics of the phenomenon.
[attachment=0:14o5x310]article-0-052837B5000005DC-499_634x356_popup.jpg[/attachment:14o5x310]
The image above looks just like the clouds that passed over my home yesterday in SoCal.
But unlike the description above of relatively mild results, this storm yielded winds, nasty thunder and lightning, big rain drops and hail!
[offsite:14o5x310]A woman walking under a tree was struck and killed by lightning, one of thousands of strikes that touched off spot fires and injured seven others as a gusty storm pounded California. Another woman was killed by a falling tree.
Authorities said Tina Bond, 40, was killed by a bolt Wednesday afternoon as she walked along a sidewalk in Fontana, in San Bernardino County east of Los Angeles.
Police Sgt. Jeff Decker said the bolt blew out the bottoms of the victim's shoes and hurled some of her clothing 30 feet away.
National Weather Service meteorologist James Oh said there was at least one lightning strike every minute for a couple of hours Wednesday in San Bernardino County, where both deaths and most of the injuries occurred.
Northern California received more than 1,000 lightning strikes from Wednesday night into Thursday morning, the weather service said.
Medical responders revived a woman struck by lightning Wednesday night while walking across a yard in Plumas, about 150 miles northeast of Sacramento.
"She was carrying an umbrella, and all the fabric was burned off," sheriff's Sgt. Ken Nelson said. She was listed in critical condition at a Sacramento hospital.
In Butte County, north of Sacramento, firefighters quickly contained dozens of small lightning-sparked fires, said Capt. Scott McLean of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.
"It was quite impressive — a lot of lightning going sideways, beside the downstrikes," McLean said.
Up in the San Bernardino Mountains, wind blew a tree onto a car and killed driver Elena Martinez, 31, said Big Bear Lake fire spokeswoman Michelle Caldwell. The coroner's office said the large tree broke off about 30 feet above the ground at about 11 a.m. Wednesday and crushed the driver's side of the Chevrolet Suburban.
Four young men suffered minor burns when lightning hit a chain-link fence and jumped to a rock where they were sitting in the city of San Bernardino, fire officials said.
In San Diego County, a man was hit by lightning as he worked outdoors in San Marcos. He was hospitalized in critical condition. In Riverside County, lightning injured a woman walking near a shopping mall in Cabazon.
Firefighters were working on about 22 small fires in the mountainous San Bernardino Forest on Thursday. Lightning ignited the blazes Wednesday. The largest was contained at 150 acres above the city of Highland.
LA Times | 2 dead, 7 injured as California storm spawns lightning, winds, fires (http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/wire/sns-ap-us-california-storm,1,1606654.story)[/offsite:14o5x310]
Glad I was inside at the computer, although we had a couple of surges and I lost my DSL connection a couple of times...
WTF?
I'd never seen clouds like that before.
It looked just like the underside of a turbulent wave.
Has anyone else witnessed this phenomenon?
What's different about our skies now that would cause these clouds to become manifest?
Whipped into fantastical shapes, these clouds hang over the darkening landscape like the harbingers of a mighty storm.
But despite their stunning and frequent appearances, the formations have yet to be officially recognised with a name.
They have been seen all over Britain in different forms - from Snowdonia to the Scottish Highlands - and in other parts of the world such as New Zealand, but usually break up without producing a storm.
Stunning but undefined: The clouds loom over the skies of New Zealand - but unfortunately words can't describe this dramatic vision from the heavens
And some experts believe the stormy weather phenomenon deserves its very own classification.
Experts at the Royal Meteorological Society are now attempting to make it official by naming it 'Asperatus' after the Latin word for 'rough'.
If they are successful, it would be the first variety of cloud formation to be given a new label in over half a century
'It is a bit like looking at the surface of a choppy sea from below,' said Gavin Pretor-Pinney, founder of the Cloud Appreciation Society, who identified the cloud from photographs sent in by members.
'We try to identify and classify all of the images of clouds we get in, but there were some that just didn't seem to fit in any of the other categories, so I began to think it might be a unique type of cloud.'
He added: 'The underside of the clouds are quite rough and choppy. It looks very stormy, but some of the reports we have been getting suggest that they tend to break up without actually turning into a storm.'
The Royal Meteorological Society is now gathering detailed information for the days and locations where the asperatus clouds have been seen in an attempt to understand exactly what is causing them.
Officials will then apply to the UN's World Meteorological Organisation in Geneva to have the new cloud type considered for addition into the International Cloud Atlas, the system used by meteorologists across the globe.
Professor Paul Hardaker, Chief Executive of the RMS, said: 'There would probably need to be quite a lot of heat around to produce the energy needed to generate such dramatic cloud formations.
'They are quite dark structures so there must be a lot of water vapour condensing in the cloud.'
MailOnline | The cloud with no name: Meteorologists campaign to classify unique 'Asperatus' clouds seen across the world (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1189877/The-cloud-Meteorologists-campaign-classify-unique-Asperatus-clouds-seen-world.html)[/offsite:14o5x310]
Click the link above for more dramatic pics of the phenomenon.
[attachment=0:14o5x310]article-0-052837B5000005DC-499_634x356_popup.jpg[/attachment:14o5x310]
The image above looks just like the clouds that passed over my home yesterday in SoCal.
But unlike the description above of relatively mild results, this storm yielded winds, nasty thunder and lightning, big rain drops and hail!
[offsite:14o5x310]A woman walking under a tree was struck and killed by lightning, one of thousands of strikes that touched off spot fires and injured seven others as a gusty storm pounded California. Another woman was killed by a falling tree.
Authorities said Tina Bond, 40, was killed by a bolt Wednesday afternoon as she walked along a sidewalk in Fontana, in San Bernardino County east of Los Angeles.
Police Sgt. Jeff Decker said the bolt blew out the bottoms of the victim's shoes and hurled some of her clothing 30 feet away.
National Weather Service meteorologist James Oh said there was at least one lightning strike every minute for a couple of hours Wednesday in San Bernardino County, where both deaths and most of the injuries occurred.
Northern California received more than 1,000 lightning strikes from Wednesday night into Thursday morning, the weather service said.
Medical responders revived a woman struck by lightning Wednesday night while walking across a yard in Plumas, about 150 miles northeast of Sacramento.
"She was carrying an umbrella, and all the fabric was burned off," sheriff's Sgt. Ken Nelson said. She was listed in critical condition at a Sacramento hospital.
In Butte County, north of Sacramento, firefighters quickly contained dozens of small lightning-sparked fires, said Capt. Scott McLean of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.
"It was quite impressive — a lot of lightning going sideways, beside the downstrikes," McLean said.
Up in the San Bernardino Mountains, wind blew a tree onto a car and killed driver Elena Martinez, 31, said Big Bear Lake fire spokeswoman Michelle Caldwell. The coroner's office said the large tree broke off about 30 feet above the ground at about 11 a.m. Wednesday and crushed the driver's side of the Chevrolet Suburban.
Four young men suffered minor burns when lightning hit a chain-link fence and jumped to a rock where they were sitting in the city of San Bernardino, fire officials said.
In San Diego County, a man was hit by lightning as he worked outdoors in San Marcos. He was hospitalized in critical condition. In Riverside County, lightning injured a woman walking near a shopping mall in Cabazon.
Firefighters were working on about 22 small fires in the mountainous San Bernardino Forest on Thursday. Lightning ignited the blazes Wednesday. The largest was contained at 150 acres above the city of Highland.
LA Times | 2 dead, 7 injured as California storm spawns lightning, winds, fires (http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/wire/sns-ap-us-california-storm,1,1606654.story)[/offsite:14o5x310]
Glad I was inside at the computer, although we had a couple of surges and I lost my DSL connection a couple of times...
WTF?
I'd never seen clouds like that before.
It looked just like the underside of a turbulent wave.
Has anyone else witnessed this phenomenon?
What's different about our skies now that would cause these clouds to become manifest?