Clouds of the Day - April 22, 2020

Any day may be full of surprises - especially when it comes to the weather but with the advent of weather forecasting surprises are less frequent. Today turned out the way it was expected - if one listened to the weather forecast. It began with altocumulus clouds and ended with a thunderstorm. In between clouds thickened as cumulus clouds swelled with moisture and rising warm air. The weather story of today is told in the pictures below.

The day opened with Castle-like mid-level cumulus clouds which indicate a layer of marginally unstable air aloft.
(Altocumulus castellanus)

Altocumulus (castellanus) -This view looking up does not show the castle-like towers rising out of the cloud base.

These are certainly Humble clouds and that is how they are named. They live up to their name - cumulus humilus. Cumulus for puffy and humilus for being humble.

There are two cloud layers here. There is a high thin veil of ice crystals (Cirrostratus) above the tops of lower cumulus congestus.

Capped by a cirrostratus icy veil, Distant Cumululonimbus are dropping rain to the south.

Distant Cumulonimbus in background with cumulus in the foreground

Bright sunshine floods the sky illuminating small high cumulus (Altocumulus) underneath cirrus and spreading jet contrails.

Cumulus start out small but can quickly grow larger. This cumulus has grown from a cumulus to cumulus mediocris to this cumulus congestus.

Is this double good luck? Looking southeast before sunset this rainbow quickly turned into a double rainbow.

This photo gives a hint of what was a three dimensional sky. These High cumulus (altocumulus) were greatly enhanced by the setting sun.

This is a chaotic sky. Several different cloud types were sculptured a variety of shapes by the wind. The main cloud type was cumulonimbus.

The cumulonumbus was dying as updrafts turned into downdrafts.

One of my favorite sensors on the weather station measures solar radiation. There is a lot of information packed into these charts. The chart on the right is from today and the jagged edges show rapidly changing amounts of solar radiation reaching the surface. The cloud patterns shown above indicate a day that ranged from mostly sunny to cloudy with rain. Clouds were close together, dense and moving quickly so the changes in solar radiation were large. This shows the challenges faced by solar energy for electric generation. Without storage capability the energy is too unreliable to be a reliable source of energy.

Solar radiation chart for yesterday and today. - Jagged profile indicates passing clouds