Painted Sky

Photo by Craig Johnson, Cedar Falls, Iowa, USA. Copyright August, 18, 2019.

Enjoy this photo of nature’s handy-work. While the sky was smeared with ice crystals temperatures on the ground were in the lower 80s. The clouds in this photo are called cirrus. The name comes from Latin meaning “hair-like.” The strands in this photo certainly look like flowing hair.

Ice crystals do not evaporate - they sublimate. That means the ice changes directly from ice into water vapor without first becoming a liquid. Evaporation occurs when water changes into water vapor. Sublimation is slower than evaporation so the cloud edges are easily blown into streamers by winds aloft. It is the slowly sublimating ice crystals that make this effect possible.