Scrapbook - more cloud stuff from around the web

I'd love a chair like this, but only if I had a room big enough to show it off. The Cloud Appreciation Society says, "These original paintings were done on 4 x 8 foot canvases, and used as upholstery on restored antique furniture frames. Each painting is original and no two pieces of furniture are the same. Concept by DeWayne Lumpkin. Paintings done by C Magellen, both of Southern Oregon. This furniture series was first exhibited in July 2010 in Redondo Beach, CA."

Luke Howard, the man who named the clouds (see menu on the right), sketched clouds like this one - a cumulonimbus cloud in a typical anvil shape (use the search box to see more). In Howard's sketch, it looks a bit like a flying fruit bowl.

This is the only cloud photo that's earned me any money (so far), and I cheated. I was about to get into the car when I glanced back at the house and spotted these clouds above my chimney. The trail of cloud underneath is called 'virga' - water or ice falling towards the ground but evaporating before it gets there. Nathan was holding the camera so I told him to take the shot quick. After it appeared on the Cloud Appreciation Society's website, it was published in a Readers' Digest article about the society, here and in Canada.

This page is a sort of scrapbook - I'll add a few more pictures as I find them.






Hector Thunderstorm Project from Murray Fredericks on Vimeo.
Camera Murray Fredericks, Editing Lindi Harrison, Original Sound Tommy Shutzinger. Double click on the image to see it full screen. This time-lapse assembly is part of the Hector Thunderstorm Project being produced in northern Australia. The first exhibition of stills from the project was in Melbourne in June 2011.


Vicci Harrison took this photo of a fallstreak hole at sunset over Jay, Florida, US. It's featured in an online article from the Cloud Appreciation Society about some new research about fallstreak holes.

Click here to see one I photographed over my house.

San Francisco-based artist Ken Murphy set up a camera to shoot images of the city's skies for a year, culminating in a time-lapse video mosaic of over 3 million images. He says, "I installed a custom camera rig on the roof of the Exploratorium museum in SF, which captured an image of the sky every 10 seconds, around the clock, for a year. From these images, I created an array of time-lapse movies, each showing a single day, arranged chronologically, and playing in sync. My intention was to reveal the patterns of light and weather over the course of a year. More info about the project here."



One of my favourite films is the Japanese animated children's story, My Neighbour Totoro, and one of the reasons I like it is that whoever painted the backgrounds obviously loves clouds. Some of the cumulus clouds are full, big and beautiful, and there are some lovely sunsets. This (left) is a sketch of one scene.

Mitch Dobrowner has won the 2012 Sony World Photographer of the Year Award with his Storms series - wonderful black and white photographs. Click here to see the series - click on "storms", where you can enlarge the images. Mike Olbinski (see below) has also filmed some wonderful storms.


A supercell near Booker, Texas from Mike Olbinski on Vimeo.

Pilots know that you should never fly into a cumulonimbus cloud. You'll almost certainly die. But one woman, an Australian paraglider, got sucked into one and was swept up to 32,000ft, and lived to tell the tale.

Lightning was flashing all around me, huge hailstones were battering me and there was nothing I could do about it. I knew then that the chances of my survival were almost zero. 

An awesome supercell in Wyoming, May 2014.


A time-lapse record of storms over Arizona by Mike Olbinski.


Great introduction to cloudspotting from 'It's OK to be smart' with some useful links on the page.