There must be text-books on how to tell the cumuli from the cirrus.
Some are close-packed and dense, like cumuli; some are wispy or mottled, like cirri.
At sunset the thermometer was at 55°; the evening clear and calm, with some cumuli.
The moon emerged from behind a cloud, touching with a delicate sepia some fleecy edge of cumuli.
White clouds rising in the east gather into cumuli, with an increasing blackness along their lower portions.
The cirri disappeared by degrees, and the cumuli towered up on the horizon in colossal masses.
The engraving on the preceding page, shows a phase of these fair-weather summer cumuli.
I have watched the cumuli at such periods when they filled the air, and can assert that they never rise.
Weird was the hectic flushing, the glow of the sheet lightning among the July and August cumuli.
The cumuli resembled mountains in shape, and their peaked summits shone as white as Alpine snows.
cumulus m'yə-ləs) Plural cumuli (ky m'yə-lī')A dense, white, fluffy cloud with a flat base, a multiple rounded top, and a well-defined outline. The bases of cumulus clouds form primarily in altitudes below 2,000 m (6,560 ft), but their tops can reach much higher. Cumulus clouds are generally associated with fair weather but can also bring rain when they expand to higher levels. The clouds' edges are well-defined when they are composed of water droplets and fuzzy when made up of ice crystals. See illustration at cloud. |
