I have been inseparable from The Cloudspotter’s Guide: The Science, History, and Culture of Clouds after receiving it as a gift a few days ago. In it, I’ve just learned of “cloud streets:”
Low clouds can line up parallel to the wind to form Cumulus radiatus. Also known as ‘cloud streets’, they’re the Roman roads of the cloud road.
See also:
So irregular is their movement that when physicists came up with Chaos Theory in the 1970s, some had been inspired by gazing up at the clouds.
Emergent sky roads or our perception of such couldn’t help but remind me of another example of constellation thinking. These water droplet streets are our stories about structure such that we can make sense of their presence. Most clouds fall into 10 main types, although we typically know the Cumulus, not only because it’s one of the Low Clouds. It, together with the other nine types and varieties, comprises our daylit astronomy. To cloudgazing.
