Every day, I learn more about how the clouds I love to photograph are created and grow. Most clouds are formed by warm air rising from the ground and turning into ice crystals – they call it convection.

Clouds owe their existence to convection, the transport 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 moisture in the atmosphere, especially by updrafts and downdrafts in an unstable atmosphere.

As the clouds form, most start absorbing some moisture, thus the darkening spots on the clouds.

I’m learning that there are usually few clouds for me to photograph – at least the kind I want to photograph – early in the morning, as the ground warms up from the sun, the heat rises, and the moisture turns to ice crystals.

No two clouds are alike.

By mid-afternoon, the ground has usually warmed up to start making severe clouds, most of the cumulus clouds that grow and spread up to a mile above the surface.

I’m also learning to look up and see when it’s likely to rain – or not. I can’t rain without clouds.

Today I saw some more dramatic clouds than usual, and my Cloud Book suggests they might be the “Altocumulus of a chaotic sky.”

These clouds occur at several levels; the sky is characterized by a heavy or dramatic appearance with broken sheets of poorly defined clouds.

These clouds transition from medium-level  (between 6,500 to 20,000 feet) and from low altocumulus clouds to high, thin altostratus clouds.

This, I think, is an altocumulus cloud.

These clouds suggest uncertain weather; people who see it might expect short rainfall, which happened to me.

The book is helping me plan my photography. I know to look for the right sky at me around 3 p.m. when the ground is the warmest, and the wind blows.

Both significantly affect the formation and movement of clouds.

This is when the sun starts to disappear as the clouds spread, and I can get those shots I love of a bright sun being consumed by an ascending sky. It’s a beautiful moment for nature and a good moment for a photographer.