Know Your Clouds
THE HIGH CLOUDS
Cirrostratus: The high milky veils that most people barely notice. Largely transparent high clouds. They tend to cover big areas of the sky, but are often so subtle as to be missed.
Cirrocumulus: The fleeting layers of rippling cloudlets known as mackerel skies. High patches of clouds or layers of tiny cloudlets, with striations that most resemble a mackerel's distinctive stripes.
Cirrus: The delicate streaks of falling ice crystals. In the form of delicate, white streaks, patches or bands of falling ice crystals, they are detached from each other and have fibrous or silky appearances.
THE MIDDLE CLOUDS
Nimbostratus: The thick, gray blankets that rain and rain and rain. The deepest of all the layer clouds -- sometimes extending from 2,000 feet up to 18,000.
Altostratus: The mid-level layers, known as "the boring clouds." Gray clouds that are either featureless or fibrous in appearance, and typically extend over an area of several thousand square miles.
Altocumulus: The layers of bread rolls in the sky . Layers or patches of cloudlets in the shape of rounded clumps, rolls or almonds/lenses.
THE LOW CLOUDS
Stratocumulus: The low, puffy layers . Layers or patches of clouds with well-defined bases.
Stratus: The low, misty blankets . Gray layers or patches of clouds with very diffuse edges.
Cumulonimbus: The towering thunderclouds that scare us senseless . These have dark bases and produce heavy showers -- often of hail -- which can be accompanied by thunder and lightning.
Cumulus: The cotton wool tufts that form on a sunny day . Low, detached, puffy clouds that develop vertically in rising mounds, domes or towers, and have generally flat bases.