As you may have figured out, The Cloud Book: How To Understand The Skies, by Richard Hamblyn, arrived today as biblical and beautiful clouds filled the skies around here (sorry, Montana).

I grabbed my cameras and my book and headed up Route 61 to one of my favorite big sky photo sites, and I was not disappointed.

I set up the tripod, pointed the color camera, and got soaked by a rainstorm. The Leica is 100 percent waterproof.

I loved the images, and I enjoyed learning about the clouds I am photographing.

Cumulus clouds are among the lowest level clouds, usually about a mile or so up. When the wind lifts them, says Hamblyn, what he calls “energetic cumulus clouds” can grow vast and dramatic, their great white convective currents soaring a mile or more into the sky.

I was looking at one in this photo, thunderstorms all around it.

That kind of cloud, I think, is what I was seeing and photographing.

I’ll share what I am learning about clouds and keep it short.

There are ten principal clouds “genera.”

There are Low Clouds, the base usually seen below 6,500 feet.

They are the stratocumulus, the stratus, the cumulus, and the cumulonimbus.

There are Medium Clouds, the base usually between 6,500 and 20,000 feet. They are the altocumulus, altostratus, and nimbostratus.

Then, there are the High Clouds, base usually above 20,000 feet.

They are the cirrus, cirrocumulus, and cirrostratus clouds.

___

Cumulus clouds are detached, individual, cauliflower-shaped clouds usually spotted in fair weather conditions. The tops of these clouds are mostly brilliant white tufts when lit by the sun, although their base is generally relatively dark.

Different strains of cumulus clouds are most common this time of year and most likely what I will see.

All cumulus clouds develop because of convection.

Convention occurs as the air heated at the surface is lifted, cools, and water vapor condenses to produce the cloud. All clouds are made out of ice crystals.

If conditions allow, these can grow in height and size throughout the day and can eventually form into more significant, higher clouds.

Convection is essential when it comes to an understanding the clouds.

It is the rise of heat and moisture by the movement of a fluid. In meteorology, the term is explicitly used to describe the vertical transport of heat and humidity in the atmosphere, especially by updrafts and downdrafts in an unstable atmosphere.

So far, I can recognize only two or three types of clouds by sight. I’ve only seen a few since I started paying attention.

I’ll take it slow and bear with me; my Dyslexia has my head spinning just from the first few pages of the book.

I’ll get there.