A cloud watching notebook

Short field notes on clouds, light and weather. One sky, looked at most mornings and most evenings.

Morning · Altocumulus

Mackerel sky over the river

Rows of small rounded cloudlets by half past seven, evenly spaced like fish scales. By ten they had thickened into a grey sheet. The old saying holds more often than it should: rain arrived the next afternoon.

Evening · Cumulonimbus

An anvil that never broke

A tall tower to the south-west, flattened at the top into a wide anvil. Lightning flickered inside it for twenty minutes, but the storm drifted east and the street stayed dry. Good light afterwards, low and orange under the base.

Midday · Cirrostratus

The halo day

A thin milky veil across the whole sky and a clean 22° ring around the sun for almost an hour. Easy to miss: the veil is so faint that the sky just looks a little washed out until you notice the circle.