I snapped this photo a couple of weeks ago at a local grocery store parking lot. The clouds looked like they were radiating from a central point, which I thought was rather intriguing…and the more I looked at this picture, the more I wondered what caused this formation.
My best guess was that they were a type of stratocumulus cloud, striated due to the particular airflow. My vantage point in this photo was looking at them from the end, which caused them to appear to radiate from the horizon, but in actuality, the clouds were most likely lined up in a normal striated pattern. So the remarkable thing about the photo was not necessarily the clouds themselves, but the angle from which I was able to view them.
Fortunately for me, through a friend of a friend, our local TV meteorologist, Josh Judge, provided a much more scientific – and succinct – explanation:
“They are called, “cloud streets” (also known as horizontal convective rolls). They are created when rising and sinking of warm and cool air creates gaps between cumulus clouds. Then when that rising and sinking of air aligns with the wind, cloud streets are formed.”
Well now, for someone fairly ignorant about meteorology, I was pretty close to correct, wouldn’t you say? Thanks, Josh! And thank you all for stopping by here today! For more poetry, head on over to Keri Recommends, where Keri Collins Lewis (of Winter Swap Poetry fame!) is hosting Poetry Friday!
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Radio, Rhythm & Rhyme 
Matt,
Thank you for the new term “cloud streets.” My mind is thinking about who would walk these boulevards. It definitely calls for whimsy.
I like the alliteration in your haiku. Great photograph.
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Thank you, Joy! I’m really glad you liked it.
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I love finding interesting clouds, and now you’ve taught me a new one to look for. Your haiku did capture what they were very well indeed.
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Thanks so much, Linda!
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Matt, I feel like I had a wonderful science lesson from Professor Matt today. Not only did you capture science in motion but you did it poetically. It’s time to consider what you would like to send me for my next gallery, #WinterWonder17. This #imagepoem, of course, is a winter wonder.
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Thank you, Carol! You can certainly use this, if you’d like, and if I have the time, I’ll see if I can come up with something else, as well.
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What a cool photo and haiku. As an added bonus, I learned something new, too! I love the term cloud streets. I will be looking for them in our unsettled atmosphere over the next week or so.
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We learn something new every day, don’t we, Kay? Thanks so much!
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“Cloud streets” sounds so much lovelier than “horizontal convective rolls” (although those sounds like they have potential as a type of fancy breakfast food). Thanks for sharing your cool “sky fingers” with us 🙂
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Thanks, Tabatha! I agree, I prefer my convective rolls with lots of icing.
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What a fascinating photo and lesson in cloudology. I also like your poem, placed well out of the way of those windy currents.
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Thank you, Violet, I’m glad you liked it!
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I like your explanation of cloud street and poem very much, Matt.
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Thank you, Brenda!
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“Cloud streets” needs its own poem!
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I know, right? I already had this vision of giant fingers stretching across the sky, so I couldn’t go with the ‘cloud streets’ imagery…but perhaps some day!
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I agree with Mary Lee, though your sky fingers conjure a great image. “Cloud streets” makes me think there are some poets in the weather world!
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And I agree with both of you! “Cloud streets” is too good an image to go to waste!
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Matt, as weird as this sounds, I taken some really awesome sky photos in the Panera parking lot on South Willow St. in Manchester! A guess parking lots, with their expanse, provide a pretty good view.
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For our area, I think you’re right – parking lots are one of the few places where the space is open enough without trees blocking the view!
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Great photo and haiku, Matt. I love how the word clutch has more than one meaning — I think of both the verb to clutch, and a clutch of eggs.
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Thank you, Laura, I appreciate that. I hadn’t thought of the double-meaning for ‘clutch,’ so thanks for pointing that out; I liked the word not only for its “c” alliteration, but also for its assonance with ‘stretch’.
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