In this issue of Weather

Abstract

We start this month’s Weather with an examination of the cloud effects painted by Edvard Munch. Several possible explanations for these clouds have been put forward, but in ‘Screaming clouds’ on p. 114, Svein Fikke, Jón Egill Kristjánsson and Øyvind Nordli carefully examine the evidence to prove that the bright colours are associated with nacreous (‘mother-of-pearl’) clouds, formed in this case by the ascent of stable air in westerly winds across the mountains of Norway. On p. 123, Iain Cameron and Adam Watson supply our next paper with the annual update on surviving snow on Scottish mountains: ‘Seven Scottish snow patches survive until winter 2016/2017’. Next, on p. 128, we have Colin Tandy’s short reminiscence of his service in the Met Office in the 1950s. In March, the celebration of World Meteorological Day was marked by the ­publication of the new World Meteorological Organization International Cloud Atlas, which includes many pictures by photographers who are often published in Weather. A new supplementary feature of layer clouds was included in this new publication: asperitas, meaning roughness. We mark this with a paper by a group instrumental in the establishment of this supplementary feature: Giles Harrison, Gavin Pretor-Pinney, Graeme Marlton, Graeme Anderson, Daniel Kirshbaum and Robin Hogan. ‘Asperitas – a newly identified cloud supplementary feature’ describes the process and evidence necessary to name a new cloud form, as well as the theory behind its dramatic shape, beginning on p. 132. (Pictures in this issue show some other examples of a feature normally associated with the stratocumulus and altocumulus genera.) School activities to encourage interest in science through useful application in meteorology is well described in Ryan Ing’s brief report on p. 141: ‘Sixth-form student launches weather balloon (September 2016)’. The clear attraction of an ascent to reach space through the earth’s atmosphere is evident in this article. We finish this month’s issue with ‘Meteodiversity: a new concept for quantifying meteorological diversity’ by Jordi Mazon and David Pinto on p. 143. At present, climate is often described using the system devised by Köppen and Geiger, although this is based on typical vegetation (or the lack of it), rather than specific meteorological parameters. Related to energy in ecological systems, Mazon and Geiger propose an index based on the occurrence of meteorological phenomena and their variability through the year.