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The Book Of Clouds
New in Paper
See the sky as you never have before. Using a series of his awe-inspiring images, photographer and scientist John Day--who has a Ph.D. in cloud physics and is known round the world as "The Cloudman"--introduces us to earth's great skyscape. His spectacular portfolio of pictures captures a variety of cloud forms and shapes, ranging from cottony-soft cumulus clouds to frightening, whirling funnels, as well as a number of optical effects, such as coronas and halos, seen in the heavens above. A magnificent cloud chart; an explanation of clouds formation; hints on forecasting, observing, and photographing clouds; and his "Ten Reasons to Look Up" teach us to use our inner eye to really perceive those familiar fleeting forms.
See the sky as you never have before. Using a series of his awe-inspiring images, photographer and scientist John Day--who has a Ph.D. in cloud physics and is known round the world as "The Cloudman"--introduces us to earth's great skyscape. His spectacular portfolio of pictures captures a variety of cloud forms and shapes, ranging from cottony-soft cumulus clouds to frightening, whirling funnels, as well as a number of optical effects, such as coronas and halos, seen in the heavens above. A magnificent cloud chart; an explanation of clouds formation; hints on forecasting, observing, and photographing clouds; and his "Ten Reasons to Look Up" teach us to use our inner eye to really perceive those familiar fleeting forms.
205 pages, Paperback
First published August 25, 2002
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
August 29, 2009
I've received this most beautiful book as a birthday present.
In the later years of High School I became fascinated with Geography. Before then I just thought Geography was where I was forced to learn what always seemed at the time like made-up stories about the life people pretended to live in other countries - I still struggle with the names of the capitals of even European countries and still don't fully believe in the flu masks on the faces and pillows on the backs of Japanese women. Then, all of a sudden we had to learn the names of clouds - and up until that class I'd never thought that clouds could even have names.
I was particularly taken by the scientific drawings explaining the cumulonimbus caught swelling up in parallel arrows away from the heat of the ground into the highest reaches of the sky where, just as inevitably, the arrows arched from the up rush and turned with the cooling air to swing back down toward the ground.
In Australia we have what Americans like to call 'big skies'. The land of sweeping planes allows ample vantages for watching clouds gather and the heat of the ground works tirelessly to ensure some incredible effects.
Recently I was shocked to learn how little water it takes to make a cloud - a mere swimming-pool's worth is enough to make a surprising amount of cloud. This makes sense when you think about it - just consider how dry you are after walking in a fog.
I haven't read any of this book yet, but will read it all and spend hours in fixated concentration at the beautiful photography and those wonderfully billowing names that are all but onomatopoeic.
(One stormy summer's night, as the light was rushing away from the end of the day and the sky had for hours been laden with thick ink black clouds, far away there must have been a break in the sky.
For although the sky above was billowing and the clouds where so thick they didn't resemble clouds anymore, but rather an endless wall of gloom that had so dimmed the evening that even the street lamps had hummed on in their muted orange - the sky to the West became incomprehensibly bright.
Somewhere, out there, distant across Port Philip Bay, out to the West of here, out from where our weather descends down upon us, there was an unexpected clearing, a precipitous slash of cloudlessness, and this edge, this boundary condition between black and blue brought with it a coincidence of phenomena as rare and precious as the most flawless diamond: or perhaps I mean as unexpected as one of those Russian back-lit rubies.
The elements that conjoined to make this coincidence were the endless black clouds above, then the unanticipated clearing out to the West, out there, just as the sun was sinking under that enormous curtain of pitch black clouds which also just happened to be the moment when the sunset itself had fully caught ablaze.
Suddenly, the world abandoned its premature dark, and even some of the streetlights flickered off again, and the light from the sunset lit the entire underside of the clouds so that the whole world turned the most glorious oranges, and yellows and reds - it was as if all of the thick thunder clouds were no longer made of water vapour, but rather had been turned to paraffin and someone, someone who must have been standing on the ground incredibly close to me, had decided to strike their match and set all of those clouds aflame. The light was like nothing I had ever seen till then or since or am ever likely to see again. I will never forget it.)
In the later years of High School I became fascinated with Geography. Before then I just thought Geography was where I was forced to learn what always seemed at the time like made-up stories about the life people pretended to live in other countries - I still struggle with the names of the capitals of even European countries and still don't fully believe in the flu masks on the faces and pillows on the backs of Japanese women. Then, all of a sudden we had to learn the names of clouds - and up until that class I'd never thought that clouds could even have names.
I was particularly taken by the scientific drawings explaining the cumulonimbus caught swelling up in parallel arrows away from the heat of the ground into the highest reaches of the sky where, just as inevitably, the arrows arched from the up rush and turned with the cooling air to swing back down toward the ground.
In Australia we have what Americans like to call 'big skies'. The land of sweeping planes allows ample vantages for watching clouds gather and the heat of the ground works tirelessly to ensure some incredible effects.
Recently I was shocked to learn how little water it takes to make a cloud - a mere swimming-pool's worth is enough to make a surprising amount of cloud. This makes sense when you think about it - just consider how dry you are after walking in a fog.
I haven't read any of this book yet, but will read it all and spend hours in fixated concentration at the beautiful photography and those wonderfully billowing names that are all but onomatopoeic.
(One stormy summer's night, as the light was rushing away from the end of the day and the sky had for hours been laden with thick ink black clouds, far away there must have been a break in the sky.
For although the sky above was billowing and the clouds where so thick they didn't resemble clouds anymore, but rather an endless wall of gloom that had so dimmed the evening that even the street lamps had hummed on in their muted orange - the sky to the West became incomprehensibly bright.
Somewhere, out there, distant across Port Philip Bay, out to the West of here, out from where our weather descends down upon us, there was an unexpected clearing, a precipitous slash of cloudlessness, and this edge, this boundary condition between black and blue brought with it a coincidence of phenomena as rare and precious as the most flawless diamond: or perhaps I mean as unexpected as one of those Russian back-lit rubies.
The elements that conjoined to make this coincidence were the endless black clouds above, then the unanticipated clearing out to the West, out there, just as the sun was sinking under that enormous curtain of pitch black clouds which also just happened to be the moment when the sunset itself had fully caught ablaze.
Suddenly, the world abandoned its premature dark, and even some of the streetlights flickered off again, and the light from the sunset lit the entire underside of the clouds so that the whole world turned the most glorious oranges, and yellows and reds - it was as if all of the thick thunder clouds were no longer made of water vapour, but rather had been turned to paraffin and someone, someone who must have been standing on the ground incredibly close to me, had decided to strike their match and set all of those clouds aflame. The light was like nothing I had ever seen till then or since or am ever likely to see again. I will never forget it.)
October 26, 2017
Finally! A good cloud book! Alongside The Cloud Collector's Handbook, if you love studying all the wonderful variations of clouds, this book is the one for you. The author goes into clear and detailed description of the different types of clouds including all the variations and unusual ones. My biggest pet peeve with cloud books is that there's never enough photographs, and in some annoying cases, just sad artwork of clouds. This is not the case with this book - it is chock full of huge photographs illustrating the cloud types well. My only complaint is that many of the photos look old or dated.
Other than that, this is a fantastic book for cloud-lovers.
Other than that, this is a fantastic book for cloud-lovers.
March 30, 2025
This book is full of beautiful cloud photographs and accessible cloud science. Now when I look up at the sky and see so many different shapes, sizes, colors, and kinds, I understand how and why clouds form as they do. At least a little. :) I really do like the clouds!
June 12, 2013
The Book of Clouds by John A. Day
The subjects of this book are the bane of astronomy. They are only ice crystals or water droplets. They have marvelous shapes and lovely forms. They are beautiful and terrifying. Dynamic swirls, fluffs. A show. A science. Never the same. They sport coming attractions. They are the clouds.
They are part of the water cycle. If you, on a cloudy day, are above a stream on a humid day as waves of moisture waft aloft after a very recent rain; then you are in the water cycle.
Mr. Day has grouped the clouds by shape and named them by shape and for the weather conditions they signify or foster. Many large magnificent photos of these always transient phenomena are in this book. The photos show them to be so thin at times, like ghosts.
Yet these ghosts are of water and water is a dominant part of Earth's area and unique in being capable of being solid, liquid, and gas. The boiling and melting points aren't normal. We are mostly water. And water floats, oddly less dense as a solid.
Clouds are water held in the air, supported in air. Differing amounts of water vapor in warm vs cold air is critical to cloud formation. Droplets remain above Earth, smaller than rain drops. Each of these droplets requires a seed to grow from such as an aerosol or dust or soil or minerals.
By the millions the droplets form into clouds. Mr. Day notes that they can be cumulus in classification with domes and towers. They can be seen as puffs or in cauliflower shape. He mentions how high is the base and how high is the top. He tells us of their air mass stability, buoyancy, moisture content, temperature, frontal lift, and precipitation type. He carries over these characteristics to stratus cloud - those clouds lying on the Earth, ground fog of mists, shrouds, and obscuration. Next are the mixing of cumulus and stratus in transitional forms. There are heaps and layers or rows. Ripples happen Agitated convection is frequent. Mackerel skies and buttermilk skies are found in this grouping. Then there are the precipitating clouds that can be heavy showers, light showers, or drizzle and then snow too. Also you sometimes expect hail or the dreaded tornado.
Mr. Day includes photos of rainbows, halos, sun dogs, the pastels of irisation, and coronas. More photos show rays of sunlight and the green flash. Unusual clouds are also photogenically represented with, for example billows, lenticulars of colorful beauty and wondrous form, and cap clouds over mountain peaks. Noctilucents are found shining at night at very high, very dry, altitudes of 250,000 to 300,000 feet and are rarely seen. Sea smoke is shown that give rise to tendrils of fog when very cold air drifts across warm water. The funnel cloud, not always destructive but usually associated with tornados, is pictured. Other oddities are the mammatus clouds like tennis balls hanging on the underside of other clouds and Kelvin-Helmholtz clouds, products of wind shear at the boundary of warm vs cold air are depicted. There were no photographs and no names in classification for the clouds until 1802.
In 1802 a pharmacist interested in meteorology, Luke Howard, presented his ideas for the classification of clouds to the Askesian Society in London. Before, this, people had put clouds in paintings, books, and poems as angelic or animalistic in shape or as an accepted part of the unexplained sky.
Before and since 1802, no matter what they are called, the usual astronomer did not or does not welcome the nighttime clouds. They were and are usually cursed at by the telescopist since nothing or less than the best can be seen through the intervening clouds. Adaptive optics can equal telescopes placed in orbit but the applied technology to remove the atmospheric annoyances of a cloudy night does not yet exist.
One can sometimes observe along with the clouds, giving them their due if the clouds move along and permit at least intermittent use of the telescope. If the Moon provides enough illumination, you can observe the Moon and enjoy the ephemeral clouds. Usually you can see the clouds in sunlight but nighttime illumination offers appreciation of their forms and function along with, perhaps, some indulgence in astronomy.
Should you not be a lunar observer or are unfortunate in having night like day due to commercial, industrial, military, or security lights in your area, then such clouds as can be seen at night represent for you inadequate compensation for a hobby not to be allowed.
For lunar observers, they can, if they so desire, use this book to learn what clouds obscured the view from time to time. They could also learn why the clouds were there, why they assumed the shapes they did, and why they may have more such visitors in the sky the next night. They could also learn that earlier daytime clouds could have forecast conditions for their nighttime observing session.
In 1922, Lewis Richardson's book, Weather Prediction by Numerical Process, was demonstrating how to grid the weather data and enter into predictions but Mr. Richardson didn't have the 64,000 people he would have needed to do the computations for him. Now computers can do it. Even so, highly accurate longer term forecasts are not generally possible even if supercomputers are used.
Mr. Day offers do-it-yourself forecasting done with a barometer and knowledge of cloud types. So then, for your locale, you can know when rain will occur in 12 hours, or if it will be cloudy in 24 hours. So too you can be aware of an approaching cold front or a warm front, and know if it should be fair or if you should soon seek shelter.
Mr. Day also offers tips on photographing clouds. Nearly all of his photos are of daytime formations. Moon and clouds as a compound subject would be of interest and if you are at the scope waiting for cloud passage, then snap a few photos. Don't complain about it, photograph it.
The subjects of this book are the bane of astronomy. They are only ice crystals or water droplets. They have marvelous shapes and lovely forms. They are beautiful and terrifying. Dynamic swirls, fluffs. A show. A science. Never the same. They sport coming attractions. They are the clouds.
They are part of the water cycle. If you, on a cloudy day, are above a stream on a humid day as waves of moisture waft aloft after a very recent rain; then you are in the water cycle.
Mr. Day has grouped the clouds by shape and named them by shape and for the weather conditions they signify or foster. Many large magnificent photos of these always transient phenomena are in this book. The photos show them to be so thin at times, like ghosts.
Yet these ghosts are of water and water is a dominant part of Earth's area and unique in being capable of being solid, liquid, and gas. The boiling and melting points aren't normal. We are mostly water. And water floats, oddly less dense as a solid.
Clouds are water held in the air, supported in air. Differing amounts of water vapor in warm vs cold air is critical to cloud formation. Droplets remain above Earth, smaller than rain drops. Each of these droplets requires a seed to grow from such as an aerosol or dust or soil or minerals.
By the millions the droplets form into clouds. Mr. Day notes that they can be cumulus in classification with domes and towers. They can be seen as puffs or in cauliflower shape. He mentions how high is the base and how high is the top. He tells us of their air mass stability, buoyancy, moisture content, temperature, frontal lift, and precipitation type. He carries over these characteristics to stratus cloud - those clouds lying on the Earth, ground fog of mists, shrouds, and obscuration. Next are the mixing of cumulus and stratus in transitional forms. There are heaps and layers or rows. Ripples happen Agitated convection is frequent. Mackerel skies and buttermilk skies are found in this grouping. Then there are the precipitating clouds that can be heavy showers, light showers, or drizzle and then snow too. Also you sometimes expect hail or the dreaded tornado.
Mr. Day includes photos of rainbows, halos, sun dogs, the pastels of irisation, and coronas. More photos show rays of sunlight and the green flash. Unusual clouds are also photogenically represented with, for example billows, lenticulars of colorful beauty and wondrous form, and cap clouds over mountain peaks. Noctilucents are found shining at night at very high, very dry, altitudes of 250,000 to 300,000 feet and are rarely seen. Sea smoke is shown that give rise to tendrils of fog when very cold air drifts across warm water. The funnel cloud, not always destructive but usually associated with tornados, is pictured. Other oddities are the mammatus clouds like tennis balls hanging on the underside of other clouds and Kelvin-Helmholtz clouds, products of wind shear at the boundary of warm vs cold air are depicted. There were no photographs and no names in classification for the clouds until 1802.
In 1802 a pharmacist interested in meteorology, Luke Howard, presented his ideas for the classification of clouds to the Askesian Society in London. Before, this, people had put clouds in paintings, books, and poems as angelic or animalistic in shape or as an accepted part of the unexplained sky.
Before and since 1802, no matter what they are called, the usual astronomer did not or does not welcome the nighttime clouds. They were and are usually cursed at by the telescopist since nothing or less than the best can be seen through the intervening clouds. Adaptive optics can equal telescopes placed in orbit but the applied technology to remove the atmospheric annoyances of a cloudy night does not yet exist.
One can sometimes observe along with the clouds, giving them their due if the clouds move along and permit at least intermittent use of the telescope. If the Moon provides enough illumination, you can observe the Moon and enjoy the ephemeral clouds. Usually you can see the clouds in sunlight but nighttime illumination offers appreciation of their forms and function along with, perhaps, some indulgence in astronomy.
Should you not be a lunar observer or are unfortunate in having night like day due to commercial, industrial, military, or security lights in your area, then such clouds as can be seen at night represent for you inadequate compensation for a hobby not to be allowed.
For lunar observers, they can, if they so desire, use this book to learn what clouds obscured the view from time to time. They could also learn why the clouds were there, why they assumed the shapes they did, and why they may have more such visitors in the sky the next night. They could also learn that earlier daytime clouds could have forecast conditions for their nighttime observing session.
In 1922, Lewis Richardson's book, Weather Prediction by Numerical Process, was demonstrating how to grid the weather data and enter into predictions but Mr. Richardson didn't have the 64,000 people he would have needed to do the computations for him. Now computers can do it. Even so, highly accurate longer term forecasts are not generally possible even if supercomputers are used.
Mr. Day offers do-it-yourself forecasting done with a barometer and knowledge of cloud types. So then, for your locale, you can know when rain will occur in 12 hours, or if it will be cloudy in 24 hours. So too you can be aware of an approaching cold front or a warm front, and know if it should be fair or if you should soon seek shelter.
Mr. Day also offers tips on photographing clouds. Nearly all of his photos are of daytime formations. Moon and clouds as a compound subject would be of interest and if you are at the scope waiting for cloud passage, then snap a few photos. Don't complain about it, photograph it.
July 7, 2018
Mostly beautiful photographs, this book also has clear understandable text about how and why clouds form -- and what that means for leaving the house in the morning. I'm so glad to have read this book!
June 6, 2007
This book is by a cloud expert and I learned a lot about clouds; I loved clouds when I was a child, but I’ve paid little attention to them as an adult; reading and looking at this book reminded me of my childhood pastime of looking up at the sky to watch clouds and imagine objects of which they reminded me.
So much of the book contains beautiful cloud photography and it's enjoyable to look at the photos and see which clouds look familiar and which are not; there are some really unusual ones here. This book contains some great information on the study of clouds and its history. It is an introductory book. While it made me curious to study further, given all that I’m interested in reading, I doubt that I will read more cloud books – but, if you’re going to read just one, this is a good one.
This is a wonderful book for older children & adults who (probably incorrectly) think that they have no interest in science.
So much of the book contains beautiful cloud photography and it's enjoyable to look at the photos and see which clouds look familiar and which are not; there are some really unusual ones here. This book contains some great information on the study of clouds and its history. It is an introductory book. While it made me curious to study further, given all that I’m interested in reading, I doubt that I will read more cloud books – but, if you’re going to read just one, this is a good one.
This is a wonderful book for older children & adults who (probably incorrectly) think that they have no interest in science.
June 13, 2024
Las nubes son simples una coleccion de cristales de hielos o gotitas de agua visibles a todos que nos maravilla. De formas, hermosas, inspiradoras o aterradoras, un recordatorio de lo dinámico que es el planeta
4 categorias
Cumulos
Stratus
Cirrus
Nimbus
4 categorias
Cumulos
Stratus
Cirrus
Nimbus
February 25, 2025
AI fake book
June 1, 2025
love this!! easy to understand, and love the pics!! so many different clouds to appreciate than just the regular auroras everyone has on their bucketlist and the clouds we see in sunsets & sunrises
March 15, 2007
This is a beauty. You learn all about clouds, and it makes me look at the sky more often and with deeper appreciation. Then you get to think about the people who study clouds full time, and imagine what their lives are like....
September 6, 2016
A book containing many beautiful photographs of clouds and also explains the types of clouds and the weather associated with the cloud types. Certainly a most have for anyone interested in the heavens.
October 27, 2010
Lovely pictures and factual things. Raindrops, each one, are formed around a tiny particle. Raindrops are like pearls.
September 24, 2014
pretty pictures, not much text.
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews