November clouds

I want to learn to read the clouds. I want to know the names of all of them and what weather they portend. Until I get a book, I’ll just share some photos and information I find online.

I saw these clouds on Tuesday, ahead of two days of flooding rain. I believe they’re stratocumulus clouds: low level puffy clouds with patches of blue in between. I didn’t find a lot of information about what they predict, other than that they may come before or after worse weather.

Cirrocumulus clouds are rare, high clouds that are sometimes called a mackerel sky because they look like fish scales. Apparently these don’t mean much in terms of weather, except maybe that you’re in winter, it’s mild, or you’re coming out of rain (we were).

I think these are altocumulus because of the way they form in bands and they seem higher in the sky than the stratocumulus clouds I saw earlier in the week. These are midlevel clouds. If they’re altocumulus, they can be seen on warm humid summer mornings (which these were not — it’s November), or they can herald a coming cold front (possible).