The Cloud Appreciation Society - Cloud Appreciation Society (original) (raw)

The society for people who love the sky

Welcome, artists, scientists, cloudspotters and dreamers. You've come to the right place!

Today's Cloud-a-Day

Monday 18th May 2026

‘The sun is bursting through wild dark clouds—I feel like falling into this country like one sometim…

Cloud of the Month

May 2026

Meet the horseshoe vortex cloud. It’s the gentle twister of the sky, and if you blink you’ll miss it, as we explain in Cloud of the Month for May…

Download Our Free CloudSpotter App

Discover the amazing world of clouds with your pocket guide to the wonders of the sky and have your spottings verified as you build a collection of clouds.

Our CloudSpotter app will teach you how to spot 58 different cloud formations and optical effects, from the common ones like Cumulus clouds and rainbows to rare ones like the fleeting fluctus cloud or the hard to spot circumzenithal arc. Learn what makes each formation special with expert text from the Cloud Appreciation Society and stunning reference photographs by our app users around the world.

Build up your own Collection of spottings and use our innovative tools to find out what type of clouds or optical effects you’ve spotted. See New Spottings by other users around the world and say (with our help) if you think they got the clouds right. CloudSpotter can even analyse your image and say what cloud types it thinks you’ve spotted. Becoming an expert cloudspotter has never been easier or more fun!

Cloudspotting for Beginners

Shortlisted for the 2025 Wainwright Prize (Children’s Non-fiction)

A collaboration with award-winning illustrator William Grill, Cloudspotting for Beginners is a stunning introduction to clouds and the sky. We are very proud of this beautiful hardback book, which has been shortlisted for the prestigious Wainwright Prize (Children’s Non-fiction) for nature writing. Charming, uplifting, and easy to understand for all ages, Cloudspotting for Beginners will inspire anyone curious about clouds to look up at the sky with a new understanding and appreciation.

Recent Clouds Spotted

New from our Members

Eileen Hennemann, Member 27,616 was extraordinarily lucky to ...

Marilyn Murphy, Member 41,144, is an Artist and ...

Moira Lazarus is a song-writer and poet from ...

Musician, Sean McGowan, recently released some new music ...

A Survival Kit for the Imagination

Our downloadable lesson plans and resources for schools and homeschools teaching about the sky.

News

May 15, 2026

Combien pèse un nuage? (beaucoup plus que vous ne le pensez!)

Emma Hollen, works as a journalist for a French podcast, Science Infuse and recently wrote an episode on Clouds. As part of her research, Emma spoke with Cloud Appreciation Society founder, Gavin Pretor-Pinney, who was able to explain the nuances of cloud formation enabling her to tie up the missing parts in her script. This […]

April 28, 2026

Are Google Data Centres Disrupting Aviation Along Columbia River?

Glen C Devitt, Member 24,874 recently came across an article about how steam from data centres may be disrupting aviation along Columbia River. The article on MSN tells us that residents in The Dalles area are wondering if the Google data centre is also changing their weather as steam venting from cooling towers collects along […]

April 20, 2026

Born in the Clouds

MIT-trained scientist, Jasmina Aganovic reached to the clouds when creating Future Society’s latest scent Cloud Reverie. Along with her team, she flew to capture cloud microbes in the lower atmosphere, then incubated and sequenced them to use as a foundation for the new fragrance. In an article on the Forbes website she explained that in […]

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