Cool facts about clouds for fun
At first I thought of writing one small fact about iridescent clouds, but while reading the Wikipedia of clouds I got into a rabbit hole of random but very interesting facts. I've always liked clouds, but never looked into information about it or the oficial names, now I kind of want to learn.
I'll list the facts that I've found so far, I'll probably come back in the future if I found more.
- Iridescent cloud. I've never seen something like this before, they are also called "rainbow clouds" because they have all those colors. It's caused because of diffraction, when small water droplets or ice crystals individually scatter light. I want to see one so bad! it says it's "fairly common" so maybe I have a chance?
- Fallstreak hole. It has many other names, my favorite is "Sky punch" and it refers to a large gap, usually circular or elliptical (like holes). It's funny that it says that they've been mistaken for UFOs because they're rare. They are caused by supercooled water suddenly evaporating or freezing.
- Arrebol. Spanish word for the reddish color of the clouds when they are brighten by the sun. I didn't know such specific word existed in Spanish, might by my favorite.
- Hector the convector. I always thought that clouds were ephemeral, but there is this one that is persistent. Is a cloud that forms regularly in the Tiwi Islands in Australia. The name suits it, I don't know why.
- Morning Glory. Rare phenomenon that looks like a series of roll clouds. It can be observed or predicted regularly on the southern part of the gulf of Carpentaria in Northern Australia. (I just noticed that this take place in Australia too)
- Funnel cloud. It usually looks like a cone shaped or needle like protuberance from a main cloud. It's condensed water droplets.
- Noctilucent cloud. Also called shining clouds, because well, they shine. They consist of ice crystals, they are generally colorless or pale blue.
- Okta. It's the scale of measurement for describing how cloudy is the sky. They use symbols similar to these ◕ ◑
- Cloud seeding. I didn't know we could modify the weather like that, I didn't even know weather modification was a thing, and there is a lot of history going back to the 40s, is crazy for me.