NATURE'S WEATHER CLERK.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 189, 12 August 1933, Page 11 (Supplement)

NATURE'S WEATHER CLERK.

Scientists have given a different name to eacli type of cloud. The four main types are cirrus, cumulus, stratus and nimbus. Cirrus clou3s are the fine wisps or shreds of white, like thin plumes of feathers, often seen against a blue background. Usually they herald the approach of wind. They are the highest of all the clouds, averaging about 30,00'0ft above the earth's surface. It is, by the way, a common error to suppose' that clouds arc at much greater heights from us than they really are. The Latin word "cumulus" _ means, broadly speaking, a heap, and it is as heaps of white that one may regard the cumulus clouds, though often, and especially against a setting sun, they will appear as dark masses edged with gold. Flat at tho base, domed at the top, usually small in the morning and increasing in size towards the early afternoon, they are to be seen on many days of spring, and exceed 6000 ft. "Stratus" is a word derived from the Latin for a layer or sheet, and any clouds spread in a veil across the sky may be so called. As far as England is concerned, stratus cloud ynplies only too often gloom with "high fog" and cold. The nimbus is the . black mass of the storm-cloud, bringer of rain. In addition to these four main terms two others may be given, sinco they belong to clouds of well-known types. "Thunder-heads" . are cumulo-nimbus clouds —it is easy to see the derivation of the name; while the scientific term for the white flocks that form "mackerel sky" is "Cirrocumulus."