Weather 101 - National Sky Awareness Week

It's always fun to look up at the sky and see the beauty and messages painted above. The beauty includes white puffy or streaky clouds against a deep blue background or the fanning thunderstorm tops (known as anvils) spreading away from cauliflower-looking cumulonimbus towers. It could include the crespuscular rays streaming through breaks in the clouds (often portrayed in biblical scenes), the pinks, yellows and reds that occasionally awe us at sunrise or sunset or just the patterns found in icy contrails left behind by high-flying jet aircraft. It might even be the various features (shelf clouds, wall clouds, mammatus clouds) that accompany strong or severe thunderstorms.

One of my favorites is the myriad of cloud patterns that have "waves" in them. Whether they involve rows of clouds caused by airflow across mountains or clouds literally filled with ripple-marks, these clouds portray the atmospheric equivalent to ocean waves.

Another favorite cloud watching pastime is finding clouds that look like things familiar. This is known as nephelococcygia.

Yet, each and every one of these scenarios provides insight into the physical or optical processes occurring above. Thunderstorm anvils indicate the altitude at which rising air loses its buoyancy; the wall cloud indicates where pressure is lowest in a thunderstorm (a favored spot for tornado development); and sky colorations are just an indication of how sunlight is scattered by air molecules, dust, clouds and other particles in the sky.

While its possible to just view the beauty of the sky (and that is definitely encouraged), sky watching also opens the door to enhanced observational skill-building overall and a better understanding our physical world.

Toward this end and others, my wife, Barbara, and I (as part of educational services company - How The Weatherworks) started National Sky Awareness Week (SAW) back in 1990. That was one year after we initiated a petition to the U.S. Postal Service for the issuance of cloud stamps. The Postal Service issued those stamps (a sheet of 15) back in the fall of 2004. My photograph of the altocumulus wave clouds in dead center was taken outside our then Rockville, MD home.

In the ensuing years, we captured proclamations about the event from more than 40 states and the District of Columbia. And we have had scores of TV meteorologists, classes in schools and even senior facilities all join in our theme of fostering an awareness of the sky above. All that we ask that people (of all ages) go outside and look up. Once they do, they will be primed to look at all parts of their natural world and see the myriad of patterns and shapes that tell about our very existence.

This year's 21st Annual Sky Awareness Week celebration will be held April 18-24, 2010 and its theme will be ... "THE SKY- Where Meteorology Meets the Heavens, the Earth and the Oceans!" There are no formal celebrations and events. That is being left to individuals, families and local groups and organizations.

The National Weather Service, The National Weather Association, The National Science Teachers Association, the National Science Foundation, The Weather Channel, NASA's S'COOL (Students' Cloud Observations On-Line) Project, Polaroid Corporation and Dutch Boy Paints are among the many organizations that have made this event possible over the years!

The event is also listed in the printed version of Chase's Calendar of Annual Events.

You can also see more sky and cloud photographs by visiting the Clouds 365 Project page and its associated video (time lapse photography) page. There's even more cloud photography available at the Cloud Appreciation Society web site.

So enjoy the week, but then take your newly found appreciation of the sky with you every day of the year. After all, SAW is about seeing, isn't it?

Footnote: While writing this article from my Naples, FL home early on Saturday, April 17, 2010, I witnessed crepuscular rays and wave clouds. Yesterday, smoke from a nearby fire (a prescribed burn to clear out dead vegetation) turned the sky brownish.