The beauty of clouds

Do you recognize and appreciate the beauty of clouds? We definitely do! Those in the picture are trade-wind cumulus clouds. They form over the oceans in typical, undisturbed weather conditions and usually exhibit a block-like appearance.

The first person to describe cloud forms using Latin terms such as cirrus, cumulus or stratus was Luke Howard (1772 - 1864). Back then we knew less about the troposphere, but even now the convergence patterns are very complex and challenging for forecasters and scientists to understand. The clouds shown in the picture were captured in the early morning in Limon, Costa Rica, and might be connected to the convergence line between the land breeze and trade winds.  

Clouds may be classified by form and by height. Trade-wind cumulus clouds are generally 5000–7000 ft thick at peak development and are based at about 2000–2500 ft altitude. The individual cloud usually exhibits vertical growth ending abruptly in the lower stratum of the trade-wind inversion. As with all cumulus clouds, they have flat bases, which lie at the same level. At this height, air lifted from the ground level has cooled to the dew point. Cumulus clouds do not generally rain – we were lucky there were no cumulonimbus to disturb our equipment!