Photos of Clouds, a fascinating hobby

Clouds have always held a great fascination for me, I like to take pictures of clouds over the beach or the nearby hills, and especially in the evenings when the sun is setting. Being curious I wanted to know how clouds were formed, so checked it out "online, where I discovered many websites with a vast amount of information, which I have used to write this article. The photos, however, are mine, taken at different times, over the years.

Clouds consist of billions of tiny water droplets, floating in the sky, appearing in various shapes and sizes. There are three main types of clouds, but they also, can combine to produce other types, in all there are ten different varities of clouds that appear in the skies, at different times.

1. High clouds are composed of ice crystals and include,"Cirrus" thin whispy clouds, often with a hairlike or filament type of appearance, the curled up ends are typical of these clouds, which occurs in warm air that is being slowly lifted over a large area, by an approaching cold front. This usually signals bad weather. These clouds are often called "Mare's tails" because strong winds, high in the sky, flow them into wispy curls resembling the tail of a horse.
a. Cirrocumulus clouds are another variation of the "High clouds" and are usually patchy with a wave like appearance. They will often blanket the sky in ill-defined sheets.

2. Low clouds are mostly composed of water droplets, they can vary, starting with Cumulus -fluffy" clouds" - often with distinct edges and a vertical development. They are named after the word "heap" as they are the ones seen the most, resembling heaps of cotton wool, or large cauliflowers. They form when sunshine warms pockets of moist air, causing them to rise quickly, with pockets of air billow out to form fluffy shapes. These clouds are usually seen in blue skies.

a. Stratocumulus clouds can be widly scattered or clustered together in layers. Stratus is a latin work meaning "layers", and are low level blankets of clouds, extending in all directions across the sky. Fog is a low strata cloud that can rest on the sea or ground.

3. Middle clouds usually contain ice crystals or water droplets and are often associated with light precipitation.

a. A combined form of middle clouds is kiown as Altocumulus, a cloud with disttinct elements, that can appear in a patchy scattered format or in a linear band. Another is called Altostratus, these clouds are more diffused with no defined elements or features..

4. Multi-layer clouds are usually the heavy precipitators, as the depth of these clouds are more suited for precipitation to develop and grow. They are usually dark, associated with gray and rainy days, and are referred to as Nimbostratus.

Most of the information presented here was from two websites - http://vortex.plymouth.edu/clouds.html/ and http://eo.ucar.edu/webweather/cloud3.html
both of which I found very interesting. All the photos were taken by me. Clouds are a part of our daily life, I hope you enjoy the photos as much as I enjoyed taking them.