Waves are everywhere. Not just in the ocean, either–in everyday life, waves surround us nearly constantly. Waves, after all, are simply energy moving through a medium of either space or mass. As surfers, we’re just lucky enough that our medium is water. Our waves are by far the most fun of all the waves, but there are some incredibly cool ones out there. The newest is a cloud.
Of course, it’s not a new cloud–rather, it’s a newly recognized category of cloud. Now coined the undulatus aperatus by a man named Gavin Pretor-Pinney, the cloud formations are characterized as “localized waves in the cloud base, either smooth or dappled with smaller features, sometimes descending into sharp points, as if viewing a roughened sea surface from below.” Pretor-Penney goes on to describe them as having “varying levels of illumination and thickness of cloud can lead to dramatic visual effects.”
Generally, aperitas clouds are relatively close to the ground, caused by violent incoming weather fronts. Pretor-Pinney, who founded something called The Cloud Appreciation Society, has been trying for nearly a decade to get the cloud formation recognized. Then a few days ago, on World Meteorological Day, nine years after he first submitted it for classification, the World Meteorological Organization finally updated the International Cloud Atlas–the first time they’ve done so in over 50 years.
