Cloud Climates

Meeting someone who is in love with their subject is always a joy. 

Today I was escorting a lecturer and his dog from the University of East Anglia around the forest looking for possible sites to bring his students on a field trip in a few weeks’ time. His discipline was studying Climate and he hoped to do some work on microclimates, comparing that under the tree canopy with open ground. After a few false leads we found an ideal spot by the forest road above Darling Howe, with a stand of sitka firs on one side and rough moorland dropping to Aitken beck on the other. Despite being dull the view up towards Widow Hause and Broome fell was quite spectacular, but it was not until we were driving back down that I heard the note of passionate enthusiasm in his voice. 
Ahead, the sky had partially cleared from a uniform matt grey to a dynamic cloudscape of shapes and colours. I stopped the truck for him to jump out and start photographing.
 ‘Look at the way the lower grey cloud is streaming in with the East wind!’ he exclaimed. ‘And those paler lenticular ones higher up are quite stationary. Like lenses. They are tethered to the fells you see. Sometimes you can see them stacked like plates one above the other.’
We stood and looked as the dark rain-heavy wisps formed and dissipated quickly as smoke. Behind them the lenticular masses hung like pale Chinese lanterns back-lit by the hidden sun, moulding themselves into slow lines against the infinite blue.
 But time was limited and I started the engine. With a sigh he came down to earth again. 
 ‘I could watch them forever,’ he said.