Know Your Clouds!

Yes, you might've learned all of this in school. But if you didn't, this mini-lesson should help. The following descriptions are excerpted and adapted from "The Cloudspotter's Guide."

THE HIGH CLOUDS

Cirrostratus: The high milky veils that most people barely notice.

Largely transparent high clouds. They tend to cover big areas of the sky, but are often so subtle as to be missed.

Cirrocumulus: The fleeting layers of rippling cloudlets known as mackerel skies.

High patches of clouds or layers of tiny cloudlets, with striations that most resemble a mackerel's distinctive stripes.

Cirrus: The delicate streaks of falling ice crystals.

In the form of delicate, white streaks, patches or bands of falling ice crystals, they are detached from each other and have fibrous or silky appearances.

THE MIDDLE CLOUDS

Nimbostratus: The thick, gray blankets that rain and rain and rain.

The deepest of all the layer clouds -- sometimes extending from 2,000 feet up to 18,000.

Altostratus: The mid-level layers, known as "the boring clouds."

Gray clouds that are either featureless or fibrous in appearance, and typically extend over an area of several thousand square miles.

Altocumulus: The layers of bread rolls in the sky .