Giving the Clouds a Break

I’ve been grinching (clever Christmas reference) about clouds for the past two days, so today I decided to try to say something nice about them.

Sure, the clouds ruined the chance to see the only Winter Solstice Eclipse of the Moon in over 300 years, but maybe they were victims, too – or, at the worst, unindicted co-conspirators.   We could just as easily blame the jet stream, La Niña, Global Warming, Al Gore, etc.  Besides, even though (so far) all they’ve brought are empty promises, we need the clouds to alleviate what is about to become the driest December ever.

There are groups formed in favor, and dedicated to the protection, of  just about anything, so it’s no big surprise to find The Cloud Appreciation Society , singing the praises of clouds with their art, literature and photography.

They do have some GREAT photos on their website, and nosing around there the other day I discovered a really cool phenomenon that I had never seen or heard of before:

They’re called Fall Streaks and there are over 100 photos of them on the society’s website.  According to Wikipedia:

A fallstreak hole (also: hole punch cloud, punch hole cloud, canal cloud) is a large circular gap that can appear in cirrocumulus or altocumulus clouds. Such holes are formed when the water temperature in the clouds is below freezing but the water has not frozen yet due to the lack of ice nucleation particles. When a portion of the water does start to freeze it will set off a domino effect, due to the Bergeron process, causing the water vapor around it to freeze and fall to the earth as well. This leaves a large, often circular, hole in the cloud.

It is believed that a disruption in the stability of the cloud layer, such as that caused by a passing jet, may induce the domino process of evaporation which creates the hole. Such clouds are not unique to one geographic area and have been photographed from the United States to Russia.

Because of their rarity and unusual appearance, fallstreak holes are often mistaken for or attributed to unidentified flying objects.

You might think that after 68 years I had seen it all, but I still manage to learn something new and surprising almost every day.  Why, just recently, Honey announced that she thought that men going without shirts ( except at the pool or the beach) was gross.  I thought, at first, that it was just because I’m getting old and fat and have an angry red surgical scar that stretches from my sternum to my never-mind, but she said no, she thought even young, buff guys should wear shirts in public.

Anyway, here’s to clouds.  Without them Angels would have to sit on stars, and those points can be a pain in the ass.