photo #5842164

Appearing like feverish flicks of an artist’s brush, this busy sky was spotted by Marc Levesque (Member 44,655) over Silver City, New Mexico, US. It is a form of the high ice-crystal cloud Cirrus that’s known as uncinus, from the Latin for ‘hooked’. You might also think of Cirrus uncinus clouds as flicks of a horse’s tail, which is when the formation is often described as ‘mares’ tails’. When clouds like this are invading the sky, they can be a sign of weather to come. Their hooked appearance results from abrupt differences with altitude of the winds up around the level of these high clouds. The elevated moisture and pattern of winds tend to happen ahead of an approaching weather front. This cloud can be the first of a succession of cloud types associated with a warm front, which ends with the Nimbostratus cloud that produces steady and extensive precipitation. Where the rain or snow is falling might be several hundred miles/kms from where these clouds first appear, and, depending on how fast the weather front is moving, it may take 8 hours or so to reach you. Live in the present, and enjoy the wild, free Cirrus uncinus sky before the weather changes.