Modestino Carbone (Member 7,416) had his photo of rooftops over Barrea, L’Aquila, Italy photobombed by a Cumulus congestus cloud. With its big hair, bushy eyebrows, and nonchalant expression, this passing cloud knew just how to steal the shot.

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A Break in the Clouds

We live under the cloud(s).

They stretch time, they morph constantly.

We hardly look up.

But they watch us in the dust of summer drought,

And plummet down to our pools and ponds in the wet.

Until there is a slowing pace, a break in the clouds,

A slanting ray of pale gold seeping cheerfully through.

And the clouds inflate to a grand boast,

So, wanting our imaginations to soar like the clouds themselves.

We are beset by cloudy judgement,

Caught up in our daily lives,

The clouds sitting on the horizon are our contentment. Our brain fog.

Not seeing that heavy clouds can snuff the stars,

Can darken our world.

Clouds trying to remind us to be custodians.

To help us comprehend that they toil with sadness

Cradled by the winds.

Giving us water for life.

They tell us every cloud has a silver lining

But no blame for either sun or cloud

Instead, a startling thing of coupled beauty

Like a breath of fresh air …

Those of us who are spotters, lovers of the vapor banks

Attend to all the details, the meteorology, the history, the timeless journey.

Clouds of all colours and shapes course through our hearts,

And surge with gladness

Suspended in the space between Sky and Earth.

© Helen Taylor 2026

The post “A Break in the Clouds” by Helen Taylor appeared first on Cloud Appreciation Society.

After a wet day in Portland, Maine, US, Bob Osborn (Member 54,749) watched the rain and wind head off as sunset brought a rare combination of rainbow and anticrepuscular rays known as a rainbow wheel. Bob had another name for the display: ‘a group of solar jellyfish working their way west’.

The rays were beams of light and shadow produced by clouds obscuring the Sun on the horizon far behind Bob. Where unobstructed sunlight reached rain showers ahead, fragments of rainbow appeared. Both the rainbow and the rays were centred on the point in the sky opposite the Sun, making the rays resemble spokes within the rainbow’s rim.

And there was something rarer still. Look closely at the brightest fragment, and you might notice that its bands of colour split slightly into two misaligned arcs. This was a twinned rainbow, likely formed where two populations of differently sized raindrops overlapped along Bob’s line of sight. Larger drops are more distorted by air resistance as they fall than smaller ones, their bases flattening to resemble hamburger buns. This changes the shape of the rainbow they produce, squashing the upper part of the arc downwards. Here, two differently sized populations of drops were producing slightly differently shaped bows that diverged at this point. In other words, one of Bob’s solar jellyfish had brought along a twin.

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Watch Aurora Awakens

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We’ve made a ‘literal translation’ into English below Nashmia’s poem so that more of our members can enjoy it. The image above was taken by her of the evening sky.

Les Nuages by Nashmia Noormohamed

Les nuages, pareils aux divers cheptels,
Paissant dans les herbeux pâturages,
Passent dans les cieux, perdus, volages,
Au gré du temps, libres et intemporels.

Chargés d’eau, et de bienveillants conseils,
Ils nous inondent de leur délicate bruine,
Laissant sur leur passage, la rosée fine,
Telle une pluie de promesses, de doux éveils.

Les nuages, pareils aux remuants essaims,
Se rendent partout, sans peur, ni crainte,
En toute liberté, résolus, sans contrainte,
Et sans savoir où se fige l’horizon sans fin.

Poussés par des vents forts, impétueux;
Célérité ou nonchalance, tout leur sied,
Ils courent le vaste monde, sans pieds,
Tels d’insouciants voyageurs dans nos cieux.

Les nuages, pareils aux fibres de coton,
Nous abritent sous des ombres chinoises,
À l’allure informe, ils se mêlent, se croisent,
Célestes, doux, et insaisissables moutons.

Dessinés par un Auteur des plus facétieux,
Nous narrant mille et une nouvelles fables,
Aux contours parfois clairs et mémorables,
Tels des beautés divines nées sous nos yeux.

Les nuages, pareils à un tapis de mousse,
Déroulé en apesanteur, tendu en altitude,
Voguent sous toutes les belles latitudes,
Couverture duveteuse, parfois si rousse.

Teintés par un soleil gracieux et taquin,
Ils sont comme la vierge page blanche,
Qui invite et qui convie, pure et franche,
La grande étoile à s’y épancher un brin.

Les nuages, pareils aux cimes enneigées,
N’ont aucune attache, nuées sans fils,
Parfois si immobiles, parfois si mobiles,
Impressionnantes masses, en échapées.

Emportés au large par un vent amical,
À la fois, aériens, légers et volumineux,
Vaporeux vaisseaux fantômes, poreux,
Nébuleux, impénétrables et sans cales.

Les nuages, pareils aux prophètes,
Tantôt des héros, de véritables sauveurs,
Tantôt simples hérauts, avant-coureurs,
Ombrageux et calmes ou orageux ascètes.

Nommés avertisseurs, sommés devins,
Ils peuvent s’imbiber d’encre sombre,
Masquer l’azur bleu d’une pénombre,
Prêts à se déchaîner, à changer le destin.

Les nuages, pareils aux sables mouvants,
Sans fonds, regorgent d’eau, dense de vie.
Ils sèment leur sémillant chargement ici,
Et là, rendant grâce, sans aucun jugement.

Confectionnés par un sage Architecte,
Si avertis, si attentionnés, envers la Terre,
Destinés à toujours lui être très solidaire,
Ils ne s’en éloignent jamais et toujours s’en affectent.

The Sky

The clouds, like scattered herds,
Grazing in grassy pastures,
Drift through the skies—lost, fickle—
At the whim of time, free and timeless.

Laden with water and kindly counsel,
They bathe us in their delicate mist,
Leaving fine dew in their wake,
Like a rain of promises and gentle awakenings.

The clouds, like restless swarms,
Roam everywhere, without fear or dread,
In total freedom—resolute, unconstrained—
Unknowing where the endless horizon rests.

Driven by strong, impetuous winds;
Speed or leisure—all suits them well,
They race across the vast world, footless,
Like carefree travelers in our skies.

The clouds, like wisps of cotton,
Shelter us beneath shifting silhouettes;
Amorphous, they mingle and intertwine—
Celestial, gentle, elusive sheep.

Sketched by a most playful Creator,
Spinning us a thousand and one new tales,
With outlines at times distinct and memorable,
Like divine beauties born before our eyes.

The clouds, like a carpet of moss,
Unrolled in weightlessness, stretched high above,
Drift across every beautiful latitude—
A downy blanket, sometimes tinged with russet.

Tinted by a sun both graceful and mischievous,
They are like a virgin white page,
Inviting and beckoning—pure and open—
The great star to pour out its heart a while.

Clouds, akin to snow-capped peaks,
Unbound, drifting freely without a tether,
Now motionless, now swift as the weather,
Stunning masses in sweeping flight.

Swept out to the open by a friendly breeze,
At once airy, light, and vast in size,
Vaporous phantom ships—porous,
Nebulous, impenetrable, and hull-less.

Clouds, akin to prophets of old,
Now heroes—true saviors in the sky,
Now simple heralds, a warning cry,
Somber and calm, or storm-tossed ascetics.

Heralds of warning, oracles of the air,
They may drink deep of ink-black gloom,
Veiling the azure in a twilight of doom,
Poised to unleash fury, to alter fate’s course.

Clouds, akin to shifting sands,
Bottomless, teeming with life-giving rain.
They scatter their bounty across the plain,
Bestowing their gifts without judgment.

Fashioned by a wise Architect’s hand,
So mindful and caring toward the Earth,
Bound to her side from the moment of birth,
Never straying far, forever moved by her plight.

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See more of Aman’s live cloud mapping here

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Cirrus uncinus is one of the most distinctive forms, or species, of the high ice-crystal cloud Cirrus. It has the form of streaks of falling ice crystals that are curved at one end to appear like hooks or commas. Sometimes, the streaks extend from what looks more like diffuse tufts of wool, but their classic appearance is of hooks. The name Cirrus comes from the Latin for a ‘curl’ or ‘lock’ of hair, while uncinus means ‘hooked’. Combed out by the strong winds of the high troposphere, these flicks of cloud hair tell us about the invisible upper airflows and can even hint at the weather in store.

The hooked head is where a strand of Cirrus uncinus begins to form. High in the atmosphere, invisible water vapour changes directly into ice crystals without first becoming liquid water, a process known as deposition. As the crystals grow, they gradually fall, forming the cloud’s long, tail-like streaks. Many eventually sublimate, changing directly back into water vapour without ever becoming liquid.

The familiar comma shapes of this cloud develop because the winds are often markedly faster up at the level of the hooked head than below. As the ice crystals fall into the distinctly slower-moving air, they trail behind to form the cloud’s long streaks. This change in wind speed with height is known as wind shear.

When Cirrus uncinus spreads across more and more of the sky, they can be an early sign of an approaching weather system. These clouds are the ‘mares’ tails’ often seen ahead of a warm front, heralding a sequence of thickening layer clouds that can end with steady rain.

The trailing strands of Cirrus uncinus trace the invisible currents of the upper atmosphere. From their hooked tops to the sweep of their tails, they reveal a map of winds, a sky in motion, and weather in the making.

Cirrus uncinus spotted over Dereham, Norfolk, England by Terence Bull (Member 353). View this in the photo gallery.

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See more if Diana’s work on her website

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In the 1830s, photography provided an additional medium for capturing the sky and clouds above.  The museum website tells us “Chasing Clouds follows the remarkable story of how the sky was represented during this period, tracing the depiction of clouds in works that balanced changing artistic conventions with scientific discoveries and new technologies. Opening with oil sketches from the start of the 19th century, and including paintings, drawings, and photographs from the following decades, it comes full circle in the 1920s with American photographer Alfred Stieglitz’s Equivalents, a series of cloud studies that reconciles poetic feeling and naturalistic depiction”.

See more about the Chasing Clouds exhibition

image credit: Equivalent_MET_DT2980 Alfred Stieglitz

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