Prospect Heights Natural Resources Commission
Venue Change - Due to Covid-19 this will be a virtual Zoom presentation. Upon registration, you will be sent a link to the event as it gets closer to the date.
October 22nd, 2020 - Gavin Pretor-Pinney
12:00pm - 1:30pm Zoom Presentation
“Cloudspotting for Beginners”
Please join us as we welcome Gavin Pretor-Pinney from England as he presents his zoom talk, "Cloudspotting for Beginners". Gavin will tell you we have forgotten the wonderment of looking up at the clouds as kids and there has never been a more important time than now to rediscover the pleasures and experience the calm that it it brings.
Gavin Pretor-Pinney, founder of the Cloud Appreciation Society, will take us on an illustrated tour of the sky. He will show us how to recognize many of the varied and beautiful cloud formations, from the fair-weather cotton tufts of Cumulus to the UFO shapes of lenticularis and the strange undulations of fluctus clouds.
He will explain why clouds look the way they do and how they reveal the invisible movements of our atmosphere.
Cumulonimbus over Albuquerque, New Mexico spotted by Doug Carey (Member 28,576) and published in A Cloud A Day from the Cloud Appreciation Society.
Photo courtesy of Bill Bradshaw
A formation of Altocumulus lenticularis, bathed in the glow of sunset, mimics the contours and strata of the Grand Canyon below. Spotted over Arizona, US by John Bigelow Taylor (Member 42,972) and published in A Cloud A Day from the Cloud Appreciation Society.
In this enlightening and entertaining talk, you will understand why clouds are the most evocative and poetic aspect of nature, you will learn how cloudspotting is the perfect antidote to the pressures of the digital world, and you will discover that spending a few moments each day with your head in the clouds will help you keep your feet on the ground.
Looking up will never be the same again!
Gavin Pretor-Pinney is founder of the Cloud Appreciation Society, which has over 51,000 members in 120 countries.
He is the British author of the internationally bestselling Cloudspotter’s Guide and Cloud Collector’s Handbook. His third book, The Wavewatcher’s Companion, won the Royal Society Winton Prize for Science Books.
Gavin is a TED Global speaker with over 1.3 million views. He has presented television documentaries for the BBC and Channel 4 and is a Visiting Fellow at the Meteorology Department of Reading University, UK and winner of the Royal Meteorological Society’s Michael Hunt award. Gavin co-founded the Idler, a magazine that argues for the importance of downtime in creative thinking. His latest book, A Cloud A Day, is published in the US by Chronicle.
Fluctus clouds curling like peaks of meringue over the Green Mountains near Starksboro, Vermont, US, spotted by Keith Edmunds (Member 41,937) and published in A Cloud A Day from the Cloud Appreciation Society.
Altocumulus undulatus casting shadows on Altostratus, spotted by Randolph Harris (Member 45,004) over Church Creek, Maryland and published in A Cloud A Day from the Cloud Appreciation Society.
Mamma clouds, spotted over Cap Ferret, Aquitaine, France spotted by Katalin Vancsura (Member 30,830) and published in A Cloud A Day from the Cloud Appreciation Society.
Volutus, or roll cloud, ahead of a developing Cumulonimbus, spotted over Zandvoort, The Netherlands by Ko van Hespen (Member 36,654) and published in A Cloud A Day from the Cloud Appreciation Society.
Altocumulus lenticularis cloud over the east end of the French Pyrenees mountain range near the border with Spain, spotted by Ian Boyd Young and published in A Cloud A Day from the Cloud Appreciation Society.
Arcus, or shelf cloud, spotted over Issyk-Kol, eastern Kyrgyzstan, by Busra Karademir (Member 45,062) and published in A Cloud A Day from the Cloud Appreciation Society.