photo #5250596

While on holiday in Oban, Scotland, Jenny McKean (Cloud Appreciation Society Member 48,442) spotted these waves breaking over the bay. These rare and fleeting cloud features known as fluctus, after the Latin for ‘wave’ or ‘billow’, told tales of storm-tossed seas to a captive audience below. The attentive sailboats of the harbour barely rocked their moorings as evening approached and Altocumulus stratiformis clouds on the horizon darkened in the dimming light. Beneath the breakers of the sky, the water was calm, save for a gentle gust making cat’s paws sparkle silently across the surface.