Identifying Clouds — Earth Science 11 (Cloud Project)

Over the past 2 weeks, I decided to take photos of clouds during my trip over spring break to see the difference between clouds in Coquitlam in a wetter and colder area compared to a warmer and dryer area. Also, on the last 3 days, I was lucky enough to take a cruise back to Vancouver, which added another component to clouds forming over the ocean.

Cirrus Cloud
1:27 PM, March 17th, 2019
Disneyland Park, Anaheim, California

This is a cirrus cloud because of how light and airy the cloud is. This cloud is thin and feathery, for it was quite windy the time this photo was taken. A few hours after this photo was taken, these feathery clouds blew away from the windy warm front and brought in clouds that produced drizzle and light rain around 4:00 PM. This makes sense since cirrus clouds usually indicate an approaching warm front and/or rain.

Cumulus Clouds
11:51 AM March 24th, 2019
California Adventure Park, Anaheim, California

These are cumulus clouds because of how big and fluffy these clouds are. They resemble big cotton balls, not to mention their fluffy tops but fairly flat bottoms. Because of these traits, these clouds could be no other but cumulus.

Stratus Clouds
7:39 PM, March 28th, 2019
The Pacific Ocean, Coast of Southern Washington State

Although this isn’t dull and grey weather, thanks to the sun makes the sky look less boring. These are stratus clouds because of how they appear to look like a giant blanket of thin and flat, feathery clouds that cover the entire sky. Unfortunately, I didn’t catch the perfect photo of these stratus clouds. An hour before I took this photo it was very grey, with the clouds really covering the ENTIRE sky. It started to hail a bit, but after that the sun peaked out but I still managed to get a tiny bit of what was left of the stratus clouds.