Personal top three clouds:
- Nacreous clouds
- Altocumulus lenticularis
- Cirrus homogenitus (what a name)
I remember that one time where anti-solar rays painted pole to pole "longitudes" on the hemispherical dome of the sky. It's too bad we don't have photographic memory, or at least I don't.
It is such a wonderful world if one has the luxury of time and space and the foresight to remove oneself from the cover of a ceiling once in a while.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belt_of_Venus
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crepuscular_rays#Gallery
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anticrepuscular_rays#/media/Fi...
Thank you
x-cache: Error from cloudfront> It is a pinkish glow that surrounds the observer
This also makes no sense to me, or else maybe observer is jargon? But there's no hyperlink... The photographer certainly doesn't seem to be surrounded by a pinkish glow.
Is it just a name for the purple part of the spectrum?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_physics
Cloud formation is probably interesting example of spontaneous symmetry breaking, but that doesn’t seem to be much studied.
I also wasn't sure what to make of "in the midwest". Not being from the US, I thought that that would be referring to Austin -- but when I asked Gemini, it confidently told me that Austin is not in the Midwest. I know the Bay Area is not in the Midwest, so... Are you referring to a third place here?
Normally "purple" is used for colors that are equivalent with a mixture of red and blue, so that none of the spectral colors can match that mixture.
"Violet" is also used for colors equivalent with a mixture of red and blue, but which have so much more blue than red that there are monochromatic colors in the spectrum which can match that color and which have a frequency higher than the monochromatic colors that appear blue.
The fact that the monochromatic colors in the violet range have the same color as a mixture with a lot of blue and a little red is caused by the fact that the human red photoreceptors have a defect, instead of filtering only red light they have a second peak of absorption in the frequency range of the monochromatic violet light, so the violet light is perceived by both the blue photoreceptors and, with an attenuated value, by the red photoreceptors.
The acronym ROYGBIV should better be forgotten, because it is not known with certainty what Newton meant by "blue" and "indigo", so this acronym is misleading for the people familiar only with modern English.
It is pretty much certain that Newton did not use those words with their present meaning. He used them based on the labels of some artistic paints that he happened to have at home. His indigo paint (i.e. with indigo pigment) appears to correspond with what today would be called "blue", while his "blue" paint seems to have actually been a blue-green paint (i.e. the color that is complementary to red, and which is also called correctly turquoise and frequently but incorrectly cyan). Thus it appears that Newton meant to say that the 7 spectral colors are red, orange, yellow, green, blue-green, blue and violet, which makes sense.
I do not understand the Physics of the phenomenon very well, but I would expect the high frequency wavelengths (for example, purple) to be scattered away.
"Surround" does not describe the phenomenon of Belt of Venus adequately. Think of it like a horizontal band wrapped around the dome of the sky, slightly above the horizon, and prominent towards the West, fading towards the East.
Presumably he spent his youth in the Midwest. Austin is a pretty transient city so OP likely moved there.
Funny enough I have felt similar to OP about Texas skies compared to the East Coast. The plains landscape and the heat (common to the Midwest) seems to create a cloud overlay so very different from what you find on the coasts. Me, I'll keep my stratocumulus and cirrocumulus beautiful sunsets of the South Eastern United States anyday!
Luke Howard noticed that clouds often have features of two or more categories, such as cirrus + stratus, cumulus + stratus, etc. Based on these observations, he suggested modifications (or combinations) of the core four clouds between categories. This research served as the starting point for the ten basic types of clouds we observe.
From the World Meteorological Organization's (WMO) International Cloud Atlas, the official worldwide standard for clouds, the following are definitions of the ten basic cloud types, divided by their height:
Cirrus (Ci), c****irrocumulus (Cc), and cirrostratus (Cs) are high level clouds. They are typically thin and white in appearance, but can appear in a magnificent array of colors when the sun is low on the horizon.
Detached clouds in the form of white, delicate filaments, mostly in patches or narrow bands. They may have a fibrous (hair-like) and/or silky sheen appearance.
Cirrus clouds are always composed of ice crystals, and their transparent character depends upon the degree of separation of the crystals. As a rule, when these clouds cross the sun's disk, they hardly diminish its brightness. When they are exceptionally thick, they may veil its light and obscure its contour.
Before sunrise and after sunset, cirrus are often colored bright yellow or red. These clouds are lit up long before other clouds and fade out much later; some time after sunset they become gray.
At all hours of the day, cirrus near the horizon are often of a yellowish color. This is due to the distance the light travels through the atmosphere at a low angle.
Thin and white, these clouds look like a patchy sheet or layer arranged somewhat-regularly into grains or ripples without shading. Most of these elements have an apparent width of less than one degree (approximately width of the little finger held at arm's length).
Predominantly made of ice crystals, cirrocumulus often form in connection with cirrus or cirrostratus or from a degraded state of these cloud types and are short-lived.
Transparent, whitish veil-like clouds with a fibrous (hair-like) or smooth appearance. A sheet of cirrostratus is very extensive and can cover the whole sky.
During the day, when the sun is sufficiently high above the horizon, the sheet is never thick enough to prevent shadows of objects on the ground.
A veil of cirrostratus may have a similar appearance to a milky veil of fog (or thin stratus), but is distinguished by a halo phenomena nearly always produced around the Sun or Moon shining through a layer of cirrostratus.
Altocumulus (Ac), altostratus (As), and nimbostratus (Ns) are mid-level clouds composed primarily of water droplets. However, they can be composed of ice crystals when temperatures are low enough.
In Latin, alto means 'high' yet altostratus and altocumulus clouds are classified as mid-level clouds. 'Alto' is used to distinguish these "higher-level" clouds from their low-level liquid-based counterpart clouds, stratus and cumulus.
White and/or gray patchy, sheet, or layered clouds generally composed of laminae (plates), rounded masses, or rolls. They may be partly fibrous or diffuse and may or may not be merged.
Most of these regularly arranged small elements have an apparent width of one to five degrees (larger than the little finger and smaller than three fingers held at arm's length).
When the edge or a thin semitransparent patch of altocumulus passes in front of the sun or moon, a corona appears. This colored ring has red on the outside and blue inside and occurs within a few degrees of the sun or moon.
The most common mid-level cloud, multiple layers of altocumulus often appear at different levels at the same time. Many times, altocumulus will appear with other cloud types.
Gray or bluish cloud sheets or layers of striated or fibrous clouds that totally or partially cover the sky. They are thin enough to regularly reveal the sun as if seen through ground glass.
Altostratus clouds do not produce a halo phenomenon nor are the shadows of objects on the ground visible.
Sometimes virga (streaks of rain) is seen hanging from altostratus and at times may even reach the ground, causing very light precipitation.
Resulting from thickening altostratus, this is a dark gray cloud layer diffused by falling rain or snow. It is thick enough throughout to blot out the sun. Low, ragged clouds frequently occur beneath this cloud and sometimes merge with its base.
The cloud base lowers as precipitation continues. Because of the lowering base, it is often erroneously called a low-level cloud. Both altostratus and nimbostratus can extend into the high level of clouds.
Cumulus (Cu), stratocumulus (Sc), stratus (St), and cumulonimbus (Cb) are low clouds composed of water droplets. Cumulonimbus, with its strong vertical updraft, extends well into the high level of clouds.
Detached, generally dense clouds and with sharp outlines that develop vertically in the form of rising mounds, domes, or towers with bulging upper parts often resembling a cauliflower.
The sunlit parts of these clouds are mostly brilliant white while their bases are relatively dark and horizontal.
Over land, cumulus develops on days of clear skies due diurnal convection. It appears in the morning, grows, and then more or less dissolves again toward evening.
The thunderstorm cloud, this is a heavy and dense cloud in the form of a mountain or huge tower. The upper portion is usually smoothed, fibrous, or striated and nearly always flattened in the shape of an anvil or vast plume.
Under the base of this cloud, which is often very dark, there are commonly low ragged clouds that may or may not merge with the base. They produce precipitation, which sometimes is in the form of virga.
Cumulonimbus clouds also produce hail and tornadoes.
Gray or whitish patchy, sheet, or layered clouds that almost always have dark tessellations (honeycomb appearance), rounded masses, or rolls. Except for virga, they are non-fibrous and may or may not be merged.
They also have regularly arranged small elements with an apparent width of more than five degrees (three fingers at arm's length).
A generally gray cloud layer with a uniform base which may, if thick enough, produce drizzle, ice prisms, or snow grains. When the sun is visible through this cloud, its outline is clearly discernible.
Often, when a layer of stratus breaks up and dissipates, blue sky is seen.
Sometimes appearing as ragged sheets, stratus clouds do not produce a halo phenomenon except, occasionally, at very low temperatures.