One of the most wonderful things to do to relax is lay in a field and watch clouds drift overhead.
Don’t you think?
Perhaps more of a summer thing, but in autumn, on a dry day, it can be just as calming.
Watching them drift slowly across the deep blue sky, shape-shifting, ever-changing, creating fantastic patterns and colours in the air. I’m sure you’ve played picture-spotting in the clouds at least once in your life. What do you see as you look up? Quick, see the chubby baby’s face before it dissolves. Oh, and there’s a Christmas tree…
Fact is, clouds are not stable. While it’s lovely to sit and watch fluffy cumulus clouds on a sunny day, or high, wispy cirrus that streak across the heavens creating fabulous sunsets, clouds can also be threatening.
There’s the anvil shaped, towering cumulonimbus that bring storms, thunder, lightning, hail, and cloudbursts of biblical proportions. And the thick fog that makes driving difficult (or impossible) is basically low cloud engulfing the world.
There’s a reason why in the UK the phrase, “there’s a cloud on the horizon” has a negative meaning. Many of us use it to suggest something bad is about to happen.
But you know, God made all clouds as an important part of our weather system. They are actually a good thing – all of them. Think about it. What would we do without rain? And clouds play an essential part in keeping the Earth cool. Without them our planet would be a very different place.
[For more info on clouds and the water cycle: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBnKgwnn7i4&ab_channel=MetOffice-Weather, for more on how clouds affect our climate: https://climatekids.nasa.gov/cloud-climate/]
And there’s no doubt about it, clouds are rather pretty…
