Episode 201 with Gavin Pretor-Pinney
For the Cloudspotters and the Dreamers
SHOW NOTES:
Join us as we journey through Lieutenant Colonel William Rankin's extreme cloud spotting adventure, and learn why looking up at the sky is a source of joy and wonder. Explore how the Cloud Appreciation Society unites people worldwide through shared appreciation for clouds, fostering creativity and mental well-being. Embrace the chaoses of life and find artistic inspiration in the ever-transforming canvas of the sky.
Whether you're a seasoned cloud enthusiast or a curious newcomer, this episode will deepen your connection with the sky and invite you to become a member of the Cloud Appreciation Society. Tune in and let the clouds inspire you on this cross-curricular exploration of nature's artistry.
Check out the Cloud Appreciation Society website here >> https://cloudappreciationsociety.org/
Purchase your copy of The Cloudspotter's Guide here >> https://amzn.to/46GRAn2
Purchase your copy of A Cloud a Day here >> https://amzn.to/48I8Cmt
Purchase your copy of The Cloud Collector's Handbook here >> https://amzn.to/3RQX62m
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RELATED EPISODES:
1KHO 172: Wonder Clouds: Unveiling Nature's Poetry | Julie Schultz, Add the Wonder Nature Curriculum
SHOW TRANSCRIPT:
201 GAVIN PRETOR-PINNEY
Gavin Pretor-Pinney Right. Ready when you are. All right.
Ginny Yurich Here we go. Welcome to the 1000 Hours Outside podcast. My name is Ginny Yurich. I'm the founder of 1000 Hours Outside. And today we have the founder of the Cloud Appreciation Society, Gavin Pretor-Pinney. All right.
Gavin Pretor-Pinney If you're writing too much about it, don't worry about it. Just get free, depending on your opinion.
Ginny Yurich Gavin Pretor-Pinney welcome. Thank you so much for being here.
Gavin Pretor-Pinney Great to be here. Thanks for having me.
Ginny Yurich This is just incredible what you do with our kids. We've been learning about clouds. We've been doing some different unit studies. And through that we came across your books and sort of these are some of the basis of what we're learning. And so I have the cloud spotter's guide, the science, history and culture of clouds that you wrote. I have a Cloud a Day, which is such a beautiful book. All of your stuff is so beautiful. It's got like the coolest fonts and the look about them, a cloud a day, 365 guys from the Cloud Appreciation Society. And I know you also have the Cloud Collector's Handbook, another fabulous book to add to your collection, especially if you have kids where they can feel and the type of clouds that they find. It's just a real easy to use interface and interesting. And so I came across and I shot out an email hopeful, hopeful, hopeful that maybe you would join us on our podcast. And so I'm so honored that you're here. I have learned so much from your books and your society, the Cloud appreciation society, which people can find at Cloud Appreciation Society. Dot org is a phenomenal Web site with so many resources. I was blown away even by the resources that are for students, for schools. There's these six different lessons that people can download in PDF form. It's phenomenal. So I mean, who even knows that there's a cloud appreciation society, let alone that you made one? So can you tell us a little bit of that journey, like why you ended up making it? And did you ever expect that it would be so inspirational and so big?
Gavin Pretor-Pinney Well, thanks for asking that, Jenny, because it's it is a funny story of how it started. It really didn't start with a big plan. I didn't sit down one day 18 years ago, which is actually how long ago it started saying, I know I'm going to start this big society. No, no, no. I just was interested in clouds. I liked them. I've liked them since I was a kid. And I have liked the way they change before your eyes, the way there's something magical and mysterious about them, because they seem to be things. But, you know, if you go up and touch you, I don't know if you get in a plane, fly right through it. There's not there not a thing at all. So something strange about them, I was always interested in them. And as an adult I became interested in a relationship with them. You said I like love them and hate them. At least here in the UK where we're based, we do because they're beautiful and they are an aspect of nature that's ever changing. But they also kind of get between us and the life giving force of the sun. Anyway, these were interesting ideas for me, and a friend said, Why don't you give a talk, do a speaking event at this festival that I'm starting? And I said, Well, okay, I'd love to. It is a book festival. I've never written any books about it. This is before any of that. She said, Doesn't matter. I like the idea of you talking about clouds. And I was like, Fine, what am I going to do? I thought to myself afterwards to get people to come along to talk about clouds. When here in the UK people complain about them quite a lot. I thought, Well, I'll just give it a weird name. I gave it like this interesting name, The Talk. So I called the talk, the inaugural Lecture of the Cloud Appreciation Society just because I thought it sounded fun and I thought that's like, what would that be? What would be in that talk? And I didn't really know, but I called it that. And then it really struck a chord with the people at this festival. Lots of them came up to me afterwards and said, Hey, I want to join your society. And I thought, Hmm, actually, maybe I know I did that in a kind of light hearted way, but maybe there's a good idea there that's maybe that we need a society that reminds us to pay attention to and to appreciate the everyday stuff that's going on in the sky above us, which is so easy to forget about. So that's how it started. And I and I then wondered, listen, maybe if this is going to be an actual society, I better start a website. So I did that and the website got featured quite quickly. Everyone started. It really kind of spread very easily because the name says what it is, you know, the Cloud Appreciation Society didn't really need an explanation. And it sounds kind of light hearted. So it took off by itself, really. And I've just watched it grow, watched it grow and to nationally. Now we have we've had 62,000 people join over 120 countries around the world. Many members in the US now. It's been fascinating to observe how easily people have warmed to the idea of a society that is whimsical but also informative. And I drew I have always tried to kind of combine being fun and having a light hearted approach to clouds because they are kind of lighthearted things in a way, keeping that sense of imagination that clouds invite really by us being used to finding shapes in the clouds and so on, but also being really clear to try and explain to people how some of the science works. Because so often when we look up to the sky, we have questions and those questions can be answered. Once you know a little bit about physics and the answers are fascinating is just the first to forget to ask them. And when we're adults, people ask those questions. When they're kids, it's good to have some answers for them.
Ginny Yurich What a fascinating story. I love the stories where they're kind of happenstance. Like, what if you wouldn't have gotten asked to speak at that event? Or what if you would have said no? Or what if you would have named your talk something different? Isn't it interesting to think about sometimes those small things? And now here there is this robust society, this phenomenal resources going 18 years strong that really is inspiring people around the world. So on the website, this is a thing as an adult, I wouldn't have just within the last couple of months, I wouldn't have known the names of the different clouds. You know, you see that they're kind of different from each other, but I wouldn't have known what the different names are. And so learning that has been fascinating. And our kids who are elementary, middle and high school, they really have picked up on it. So they like to notice like a macro sky or a cumulonimbus. So now it's become part of our family's vernacular. And I think because of that, we notice it more. And so that's one of the things that you talk about, is that clouds, first of all, are a really great entry way into nature because they're accessible to everyone.
Gavin Pretor-Pinney Yeah, certainly they're they're above it all. And you don't have to live in an area of outstanding natural beauty to be able to look up at astoundingly beautiful skies. In fact, you could be in a completely urban environment and the sky's the last wilderness within easy reach. So that is one important thing. That day the sky is there. It's a resource that is sort of easy for us to reach. The flipside is that it never does things when we would like to share them. And so if you want to do a cloud spotting session with your kids between ten and 11 a.m., it better be opening or you better be lucky that something's happening because you could have a completely overcast sky with nothing much to look at. Just a flat, low layer of cloud. Or you may have no clouds at all in the sky. So really the point I'm making there is that it's an ungovernable aspect of nature beyond human control. One reason why it's interesting as a part of nature, it's also one reason why some people find it frustrating the weather not doing what we want or expect when it rains on our wedding day or whatever it is. And then there's the fact that in a way, to get in to cloud spotting and perhaps to do this with your kids, you've got to develop a bit of a Zen like attitude. You have to go with the flow, and that's a useful skill for them In the age of click your fingers and everything's available to you, it's quite helpful to get them comfortable with the idea that not everything in life works like that.
Ginny Yurich Mm hmm. I just love how your books have really enhanced our life because now we look for it, and I wouldn't have looked for it before. So I like looking. I mean, I think you grow up and you sort of see the shapes and clouds, but to see your book, the 365 skies, and there's one with like, it looks like this cat that's like towering over these buildings and it's like this huge one. So just a reminder to do that, but also to notice the different types of clouds, like even when they're not in different shapes. Yeah. And so on your website. You split up into main types of clouds, and then you have other ones like Lenticular Iris, and then you have this other set of things like the cloud bow and the sundog. And I would say, Gavin, that these are things I never saw until I read your books, and now I see them.
Gavin Pretor-Pinney So you took in there? Yeah. And you're talking there about these optical effects that are caused by either droplets or ice crystals up in the clouds. Now, we're all used to one of these optical effects. We all know a rainbow. It's a kind of default cloud created, optical effect in the sky that everyone knows. But that is only one of a whole range of these atmospheric light effects. Now, some of them, like the rainbow, is caused by raindrops falling in a shower from a shower cloud. When the sun is able to shine uninterrupted from behind you onto the shower of cloud ahead. That's the kind of setup you need for a rainbow to appear. But you can have optical effects that are caused by ice crystals, tiny, minuscule ice crystals up in high clouds like cirrus. The series is one of the high clouds, and it's named after the Latin for a curl or a lock of hair. These Latin names often refer to the way the cloud looks. So cirrus clouds are made of ice crystals falling through the upper reaches of the troposphere, which is the part of our atmosphere where weather happens. And these sometimes are shaped in just the right way to produce these beautiful optical effects. They need to be shaped in simple forms, so rather not like those filigreed ice crystal shapes you see in holiday decorations. You hang on the tree. Not not like that. We're talking about they're still hexagonal in arrangement because that's how ice crystals generally form in this hexagonal symmetry. But these are more like hexagonal plates, a simple hexagon plate shape, or maybe a column that's got a hexagon inside cross-sections. A bit like a pencil, you know, is like a hexagon in a column. When ice crystals are in those shapes and when they're clear, they act like tiny prisms, like minuscule prisms that allow the sunlight to shine through and glint and be bent and reflected as they pass through these these ice crystals. And you can get a light effect, like a halo around the sun. This is a ring of light that is a by the sort of hand span, like a thumb to little finger. If you hold that out at arm's length towards the sun or the moon. That span is about the distance between the sun, moon in the middle and this ring of light that's called a 22 degree halo. You've got also light effects called sundogs, which are like a kind of bright patch in the sky. When the sun is low ish in the sky, you sometimes notice these. And again, about that same span, some faint little finger held out at arm's length about that far away from the sun on one or both sides of the sun, as this bright patch again caused by ice crystals caused by the light passing through them. There are many of these light effects. Some of them, a couple of them are more frequent and more common than rainbows, but nobody thinks to look for them. We just miss them for some reason.
Ginny Yurich More common than rainbows.
Gavin Pretor-Pinney Yeah, the 22 degree halo in many parts of the world happens more frequently then. I don't know if we're talking about Hawaii, the Rainbow state. Maybe not because rainbows happen every day, but I mean, in many parts of the world, the statistics of observations show that 22 degree halo and I think the Sun Dogs happen more frequently, but people don't notice them just because maybe they're not familiar with the idea. There's also one co two circum zenner solar arc and it's this arc of light like a smile. Really. It's a rainbow curve, but nothing to do with rain. It's caused by ice crystals again, and you have to be looking directly upwards to see one. So when the sun is low in the sky ahead of you, if you see these one or other of these sundogs, it's worth looking directly up as well, because the same ice crystals that form sundogs. Can form this circumstantial arc, and it is a bright arc of color around the zenith. So the zenith is a point directly above you. If you were to draw an imaginary circle around that zenith and a little bit of that circle, an arc of it in the direction of where the sun is, that is where the circum zenith arc would appear and its colors are brighter and more pure than those of a rainbow. Nobody thinks to look directly upward, so that's why we always miss it.
Ginny Yurich Wow. It's amazing what you see when once you've learned about it. So we saw this past summer for the first time, a cloud bow. I had never seen one where there is a cloud. And then the end of it was this rainbow color. But it was only there for 5 minutes or less. I mean, it was gone. It was there and gone. That way, if I wouldn't have been looking over there. I think actually one of our kids shot and then it was gone so quickly. Wow. So it's been really neat to learn. And then I've gotten some pictures. I've seen the sundog. I mean, I probably had seen them before but didn't even know.
Gavin Pretor-Pinney Yeah. I mean, it's funny how once you have a name to something, your relationship with it changes. This is why we quite enjoy getting people to become familiar with these names for clouds of apps and names for the optical effect. I mean, for kids, it's fine because it's a little bit like learning dinosaurs. They love a kind of weird name because all words are weird when you're a kid, you're picking them up the whole time. It's nothing new. So to learn names like the cumulonimbus or the circum zenith or ARC, or the strata cumulus cloud or the lenticular cloud, these are all like fun names to learn. But even for adults who may be say, Does that matter? I need to know those names. No, it doesn't matter and you don't need to know them. But if you choose to learn a few of them, your relationship with the sky does suddenly change. It's a bit like learning the name of a butterfly or two. And then when a butterfly comes past, you go. Is that the one I know? No, it's. No, it's a different one. You know, maybe that you do that with speaking to your kids now. Maybe it's a different one where you've already been kind of you've encouraged yourself to pay attention to it and notice it and have a little careful look at it because you learned a couple of names. It's just sort of human nature to name things. It's human nature to make sense of the world by giving it labels. And that's what this whole idea of classifying clouds is about. Each cloud is unique. They're all embodiments of the chaos of our atmosphere. But we have found we can put them into these groups, into these kind of pigeonholes, and they don't stand them for long because the clouds are always changing and it might be one type. And then after a little bit of time, it's changed into another type. These are human imposed. So the groups we're putting them on human imposed names for something that is a fluid process. But to learn those names is to start to change your relationship with this guy, to start to pay more attention and for lots of reasons which we can go into, I think that's a good thing for us to do.
Ginny Yurich It just adds a lot of wonder to your life. It enhances more than you would think it would. When you're talking about the classifications. One of the things that I learned from your books is that the classifications actually have not been around as long as I would have thought I would have thought. These names for clouds have been around basically forever. But you talk about in the book that they came from a man named Luke Howard in the 1800s, and that before that there was really no names.
Gavin Pretor-Pinney Yeah, no. Well, before that, everyone is always described. This guy. Okay, that's the there's no need, especially if your livelihood depends on it in some way. So if you are a sailor mariner, you've always been paying attention to the sky. Farmers have been paying attention to the sky and trying to understand how the weather might change. So we've always talked about the sky. We've always had local names for it in different languages around the world. What was interesting in that at this point at the beginning of the 19th century, so we're talking 1802 actually at a very specific date we could name because this man, Luke Howard, that you mentioned, he was based in London and he was a pharmacist by trade. There were no meteorologists at that time. He just liked the sky and was interested in the weather and liked to kind of note it down. And he was a member of a local, uh, scientific debate. Society with some friends, they would take turns to stand up and give a little talk. And they said, do some research and come up with an interesting theme, and then they'd stand up and talk to the rest of the group. Well, he it was his turn. And he said, I've got an idea. What if we use that same way that we talk about plants and animals with Latin names? What if we did that to the sky, to the weather, to the clouds? We wouldn't be able to be able to kind of treat it in quite the same way. But because, of course, you know, when you've got a heron, it's not going to suddenly change into a crow or a dog like a cloud might. So would have to think of it a slightly differently. And he described as these modifications of clouds that they wouldn't change. So he did this talk on the modification of clouds and he said, What if we had some Latin names and I've got some ideas. How about Cumulus? It's a Latin word for something that's solid looking. It's where we get the term accumulation, a stack or a heap or something cumulus. That could be one for those. The Simpsons cloud, you know, the one that looks really solid on a sunny day. That could be. Well, what about Cirrus? I mentioned before, named after the Latin for lock of hair. We could use that one to describe those the high clouds. You came up with a few of these. This was like a big hit among his friends. And one of them introduced him to the editor of a magazine. He did this piece for the magazine that was a big hit. It became in the kind of early 19th century equivalent, a kind of viral thing. I mean, it takes about 15 years for something to go viral in the 19th century. But, you know, it started to influence scientists around the world and influenced artists and poets. And you found that these names, this language of the sky, that this Englishman, this Quaker, he was a devout Quaker, he'd come up with this language for the sky. It captured the imagination of people not only across Britain, but also internationally. And by the end of the 19th century, there was another big step in this system for naming clouds. When there was published this book called the International Cloud Atlas. This was in 1896. It's still in existence, actually. And this book was. And three languages, English, French, German. And it had these early photographs of cloud formations, which are kind of hand-colored rather beautiful. It gave the ten main types of cloud, kind of defined them and was like a reference work. So weather observers all around the world could use these same terms. And that's one reason why that Latin idea that Luke Howard came up with was so helpful. People didn't translate these cloud names into their own language, and therefore you get this slight divergence of what people are talking about over time. They all used the language that no one speaks Latin, the kind of language of science at the time, and that kept the referencing of these clouds consistent internationally. So important.
Ginny Yurich Now, and this is the story where the phrase being on cloud nine came from, right?
Gavin Pretor-Pinney Absolutely. Yeah. You've been doing your research, Jenny. So on cloud nine is we think of that as a happy phrase when somebody is on top of the world. Well, this book, the International Cloud Atlas, as I say, it listed the ten main types of cloud. One of those types was the cumulonimbus cloud, the tallest of all the clouds. And this is the storm cloud. It stretches up maybe ten, 12 miles up into the sky and spreads out at the top. And this enormous mushroom like plume, we describe it in terms of an anvil because it looks a little bit like a blacksmith's anvil. This goes more one way than it does the other. And this cumulonimbus cloud, which is the storm cloud that produces thunder and lightning and hail, sometimes it's the tallest cloud. And this was number nine in the list. It was the ninth cloud in this list of ten said to be on cloud nine was to be on the tallest cloud. And that is what many people and no one could be sure for certain where the phrase came from. But many think that it's related to this idea of these ten main cloud types in 1896.
Ginny Yurich Now, is it a thing, though, where it's not the ninth cloud anymore like it changed its spot?
Gavin Pretor-Pinney Well, I mean, you're on top of it. Not been. If it I mean, if you're underneath cloud nine. So people don't say, Hey, I'm so happy I'm under cloud nine. No, because if you're under cloud nine, you've got you're being pelted with rain and hail. You got thunder, you got lightning. You ought to be on it. Janey.
Ginny Yurich What if you're in cloud nine? Didn't you tell if you told the story about a man who fell through one of those cumulonimbus clouds?
Gavin Pretor-Pinney That's right. So that story is it's kind of a it's kind of a classic. It's the extreme form of cloud spotting in a way that's unintentional as well. So this man was caught. He was a it was Lieutenant Colonel William Rankin. Okay. He was a a pilot and the US Navy. And in the 1950s, he was flying his jet over the top of some of these enormous cumulonimbus storm clouds that go up quite high to get it over the top of them. Everything was going fine. I mean, it's not as you're flying over the top of this, you're doing a fly through one of these clouds, but they've got this extreme up and down air currents. You can flip a plane over. You damaged a plane with hail. So he was going over the top of one in this plane. And then it sees the hit, this catastrophic engine failure as he was right over the top of a cumulonimbus storm cloud. And he literally all he could do. It worked very quickly as all the dials went to zero and nothing was happening. He's just going to have to pull the pull the cord and eject. So he did this. He was in his summer flying suit. Sound very prepared to me when he was in his summer flying. So had his parachute on his back. And he then proceeded to fall through this enormous storm cloud. He first fell into the icy upper reaches of it, which is a little bit like those cirrus clouds, but spread out more into this broad canopy. He fell through that. It started to get darker as he fell into the cloud. Initially, his most biggest impression was this massive change in pressure. He actually his insides expanded. He said he looked at his as he was flailing through the air. His stomach looked like he was severely pregnant and very pregnant. That day was falling to the side because this pressure change. He then fell into the top of the cloud and it started to get darker and darker and he was flailing around on it, unaware where he was, which way was up and starting to get this rain and ice around him. And he wasn't sure if his parachute was going to open. Then he started getting hit by these hailstones, incredibly pummeled by the hailstones. He got the thunder and lightning, which are like explosions. They burst his eardrums. He vomited from the incredible changes in pressure, got completely battered by the hail, but he lived to tell the tale. He emerged from eventually from the base of this storm cloud. His parachute had opened and amazingly hadn't got tangled up in the swirling, violent air currents. But he landed and got caught in a tree. I think he just broke his leg. He managed to get found. He looked at his watch because he, being a professional pilot, had looked at his watch as he ejected, knowing how long it would he'd need to know how long it would be when he landed and it was likely to land and I guess to do it, his parachute or something. But he had been in the cloud for 40 minutes. And normally you would expect that descent to be about, I think, 14 minutes or 40, 12 minutes, something like that. He'd been stuck in it for 40 minutes because he'd been going up and down in these currents like a like a human hailstone really is what he was like. The doctors were amazed that he survived to tell the tale. So that is extreme cloud spotting.
Ginny Yurich Yes, right through the middle one. What a cool story. I just have learned so much from your books and been so intrigued when you talked earlier about and just like, why? Why should we look up? You know, you would think tens of thousands of members all over the world. What are people looking for? Like, what does this doing for them?
Gavin Pretor-Pinney I think they're looking they're curious. Firstly, we've always had questions when we've looked up and in the past those questions have always been answered by sort of references to the gods, really, God or gods, and you see something inexplicable in the sky and there's got to be a reason for it. And probably some of that is trying to tell us something. Now, those are often those questions that can can also be answered by. Science. So there is still the need for answers because we're still looking up and it's tough to see things from the ground. You get so many optical illusions happening with light filtering through the atmosphere that it is often perplexing and mystifying. So I'd say that that's one reason why this is a kind of an idea that that spreads very easily around the world. Another is connection. You know, in an age of division and age, a division that is kind of fueled by just the basic parameters of the digital world. It's not anyone's particular intention, but it just seems how the Internet has kind of evolved. It seems to encourage opposition and division and people taking sides. We've all seen it. We all know what we're talking about. Funny thing is, there aren't so many people who really hate a sunrise. There are so many people who violently disagree that a sunset is a beautiful thing. All right. It's one of those aspects of nature that many of us can agree about, and it is one that we all inhabit. We all live within the sky, not beneath the sky. So there's a universal quality to our relationship with the sky. We've all had that relationship stimulated when we were kids, and we've wanted to lift our attention from whatever's going on down here. Maybe when we have a little bit more time when you're only the only deadline is dinner time, you can have more time to maybe just allow your imagination to drift in the sky. So we all form that connection to the sky when we were young around in our early under ten. So that's again, a sort of universal emotional connection to the sky that comes from that. And it transcends language. You know, you can sit down with someone who is from an entirely different culture, maybe speaks a different language, and you would both know with the help of a little Google translation, you would both know what you were talking about when you discussed the sky in a way that maybe doesn't apply to some other parts of nature. So maybe species of plants or species of animals. You may not have so much of a similar overlap there, but the sky, the vocabulary of the sky is consistent around the world. So I think it's that connection and that really it's almost as time has gone on. It's the thing that's interested me more and more about the Cloud Appreciation Society is how it brings people together with very different perspectives. It brings people, scientists and artists. People from all corners of the globe can be connected through this shared interest in and shared appreciation of this one part of nature we all inhabit.
Ginny Yurich I love that you write. We think that the clouds are nature's poetry and the most egalitarian of her displays since everyone can have a fantastic view of them. That's really something I've never thought about before. Yeah, and one of the things that you say that was intriguing was you talk about fighting blue sky, thinking life would be dull if we had to look up at cloudless monotony day after day. And that really changed my perspective. We live in a state. We live in the state of Michigan and in Michigan for a good portion of the year, it's gray. So then I learned. I think that's a stratos cloud. Yeah, that that's great. But then you talked about how actually those are the types of clouds that look really beautiful at sunrise and sunset. Yeah, because the light hits them different ways and they're turning these different colors.
Gavin Pretor-Pinney So it's a one time when that cloud, which isn't the prettiest of the clouds, is the one time when it has its moment to shine and when the sun is beneath it too. Shining up on to the base of this cloud. Then this blank canvas of a sky suddenly takes on the glorious colors of the sunrise or sunset. So, yeah, I mean, I'm. I'm really picking it's best moment there. But you're right. Although the clouds, perhaps those layer clouds like Stratus, particularly Nimbus Stratus, which is a layer cloud that rains a lot and continues sort of continuous rain over a long period of time. Those are not the most photogenic or beautiful of clouds, although, you know, if you're in a area where water resources are a stretch, the best stratus is your best friend because that's not like. A cloud that produces a heavy sudden shower that rushes off the surface quickly. It's a cloud that produces a steady medium kind of weight of of rain, which is, you know, that really provides a build up of the water resources in the ground over time. So it's all relative. Whether you like the cloud.
Ginny Yurich The wording of it all is so fascinating. I mean, I just think for my own kids, like they can be learning so much Latin through learning these words because the nimble part is what means rain. So, you know, when they have all those tests as they get older and just to understand those different root words, there's a lot here. Yeah, it's combining these different words and then it means different things. And so it's just fascinating to learn. Like you said, the cumulonimbus within the there's this one for the Stratus. And we have been driving to different locations maybe on a road trip. And it just it's raining. I mean, the whole time you're driving for hours, you know, So then, you know, that's the nimble stratus and yeah, just really easy to kind of insert into your day to day life and for your kids to learn those things. I want to highlight your website because I love your website, I love how much is on there, but it's laid out in such an intuitive way. So you go and you can see all the different types of clouds like you talked about when you were talking about like the moon dog or the sun dog or the different special ones, the optical effects, and you can just click on it, you know, and then you have the main ones and then there's the, the other ones like the fog. You can click on them and you can learn all about it. So that's there you have three courses. One of them is free. You have cloud art, cloud poetry, cloud music, Cloud Library, a video gallery. I mean, given this and then and then not only that, but there are these really cool lessons for kids. So let's just talk about real quick or maybe not even real quick, but let's talk about this membership. So it was very to me seemed very affordable. And you're helping to support all of this work that's going on behind the scenes. And you get a member pack, talks about becoming a member of the Cloud Appreciation Society.
Gavin Pretor-Pinney Yeah, well I mean, you when you become a member, you get something physical in the post. Firstly an email, you get a certificate with your own name on it and your number. You never believe how excited people get about that. A number. You know how we would like to think about where I'm. No, I'm. I'm a person, not a number. What actually people love numbers in the cloud appreciation society I and it sort of says whether you're an early adopter or not, how low your number is or something anyway, you get your member number on your certificate with your name on it, you get your enamel pin and you get what we call a cloud selector. And this arrives in a it's like a disk. It's one of those information wheels which you turn and it has little windows and you can point the arrow to the different. On one side, it has the ten main cloud types. On the other side it has some of the other clouds. You point it to the cloud you're interested in. It shows a reference image, some at the height of it, whether it's going to be rain and so on. Mm hmm. It's like the early version of an app before apps existed. Those are the apps of the fifties and sixties when they there is information wheels. No way fire required, no battery is going to run out. So you get one of those and then importantly, you get a cloud the day. So this is this daily cloud that arrives in your email inbox. And whenever I first suggest that idea to people, they go, Are you kidding? Well, an email every day. There's no way I want an email every day. I get enough of them as it is. But here's the thing. It's a little contract with these emails in a sense that we promise they'll never include any promotion. We don't like send you an email to say, Hey, we've got a T-shirt out just overnight that a separate we'll do a newsletter every once in a while. But these cloud a day emails, a purely an image and a short paragraph of text. So the image is often it's a photograph sent in by a member somewhere around the world of some amazingly unusual formation in the sky. And we'll explain in the simple paragraph what that sky looks like that for what's happening there. Or maybe it's a detail from a painting where some medieval artist depicted some funny thing in the sky and there's a little story about it. But it's the other thing that we promise is never going to have a link to anywhere. So you don't read this and then click the link to find out more about this art or click the link to kind of find. And then before you know it, you've gone off down a rabbit. Warren In the first day in the morning and you've wasted your time. It's just a sure thing. And anyone. Who is a member knows they can open it. It'll take 20 seconds just to read this thing. They'll be left having learned a little bit, but more importantly, having it's kind of uplifting and fun and you end up kind of ready and reminded. It's like a tap on the shoulder to pay attention to the sky in the day ahead. So that cloud a day email is part of it as well.
Ginny Yurich I love that people are sending in these photos like I had written down this one, and it was interesting. It was about learning about a certain type where you say, if you're lucky, like Paolo.
Gavin Pretor-Pinney Paolo That's yeah, that's the name of the guy who spotted it, right?
Ginny Yurich So yeah, if you're lucky, like Paolo, you might find a patch of strata cumulus cloud and then it says the wording underneath the photo says iridescence spotted in alto cumulus over wherever he lives in Italy by Paolo Bardoli member 45,963.
Gavin Pretor-Pinney Yeah, I know we put those member numbers everywhere. It's kind of it's sort of partly because it's funny to have everyone's member number to have something so dreamy and elevated as clouds linked to something as sort of checkbook C as people's member number to me has always been a funny juxtaposition, but it's also a constant reminder. You know, this is we've got this disparate community of people around the world joined together by nothing more than this fascination with this part of nature, united by nothing more than paying attention to the ever changing abstract art display and show that's going on above us. Those numbers are a little bit of a reminder in a subtle way that we've got that that connection.
Ginny Yurich I think now what a cool thing so people can join. And I also wanted to highlight on there that you have this pact for schools that we're a homeschooling family. So this information has been so valuable just for our own personal family. You have all of these different lessons and, you know, interesting when you were talking earlier about like studying maybe a painting or and I know I think it's Van Gogh that's got those ones that looks like a wave.
Gavin Pretor-Pinney Yeah.
Ginny Yurich That's a certain type of crowd.
Gavin Pretor-Pinney Yes. Well, yeah, there's this hit there. Van Gogh is one of his classic paintings is Starry Night, and it has these swirls in the sky and no one's ever been 100% sure when they're depicting something or it's more a feeling. And maybe that's the genius of a painter like Van Gogh that the division between what he's depicting in a realistic way and what is an emotional response is no longer clear. Yet there are cloud formations called fructose clouds. Fructose fl you see t use that is a cloud that looks like a breaking wave. It looks like an ocean breaker, you know, on the north shore of Hawaii, that the surface would kind of go and ride because this cloud curves over in a in a vorticity vortex. In fact, you often get a whole series of them, one after the other, each cloud curling over and that same curling swirl. The fact is something that kind of, you know, that Van Gogh painting seems to be suggesting. He was painting this painting when he was at the asylum. I think when he was at the asylum in the south of France, in Provence, you know, you've got many mountains near there and those flipped as clouds are sometimes associated with mountains. So it's quite possible that he was inspired by seeing that particular cloud formation. And I always love it when an artist depicts not like just a kind of everyday cartoon cloudy sky, but chooses to depict a particular type. There's one other painter that might be with your listeners looking up. He's a Renaissance painter, Italian, and he's called Piero della, Francesca and Piero Della Francesca did a bunch of frescoes on the walls of a church in Italy, in Arezzo, the city town in Italy. And these all have in the background a particular cloud formation, the lenticular cloud, which looks like UFOs. So you have the scenes depicted, the legend of the true cross. So it's all about the cross that Jesus was crucified on. And this series of frescoes based on that from 14, I can't remember the date of. It's over my head. 1400 and something. Always the clouds in the background are these UFO or disc shaped lenticular clouds. Lenticular iris is the Latin for a small lens. It's what they used to refer to lentils. So it's like a lentil. And these clouds form in a region of mountains where the air flows up and over the peak of the mountain. It can sometimes take on a rising and dipping slow down wind of the mountain peak like a kind of invisible wave of air flowing, lifting and sinking. And these clouds form at the peaks of those invisible waves of air. They seem to hover in place. So I just love the fact when I was living in Italy, at one point, I went to this basilica in Arezzo and saw these clouds and I went, Wow, this guy, Piero del Piero della Francesca was clearly an early cloud spotter because he had his one favorite type. Maybe he knew them from growing up at the base of the Apennine Mountains in Italy, where apparently he lived when he was young. Maybe he kind of used to see these clouds when he was younger and thought, I know when I'm when I grow up, I'm going to be a famous painter and I'm going to paint those clouds in my ones. Who knows? But I love it when you get this kind of artists paying attention to the sky like that.
Ginny Yurich What a cool way to learn to what I came away from your books with in your website is that here is this thing that I really hardly paid attention to before. And then once I start to dive deeper, there is so much to learn through the study of like you're talking about the science behind it. We're talking about these artists and these different times in history. And so you have six lessons that people can download from the Cloud Appreciation Society website. You know, the ten make clouds and cats, birds and rabbits and how to make a cloud. And then, you know, and all of these different things. And then, you know, if they go down and check out and there's videos that go along with them, there is a news you have news articles, ice clouds. This was one of the latest news articles. Nassar is studying ice clouds. And one of the members number 41,144, he shared the news. I mean, this is really neat what's going on. But I do also love the part where you have broken it up into the art, the poetry and the music and the videos. It's it's also inspiring. So if people are interested, I think these are great to have for your own home library. Yeah, like some books are great for, you know, you get it from the library and you take it back. But to me, these are great for your own home library. The Cloud spotter's guide, a cloud a day. And also you have the Cloud Collectors handbook. They're just gorgeous books. So fun to have for your family. And then you are traveling and speaking. So in October, you'll be in the United States. Can you tell us a little bit about your speaking tour?
Gavin Pretor-Pinney Yeah, So I'm I've done this a couple of times before tours of the US, and it's really done in conjunction with the members of the society. So I, you know, say in a newsletter, who would like me to come and speak in their hometown? And you get a whole bunch of people get in touch and then you work out what's the possible way of doing it and how the route might work. And in each place you have a member making it happen, or maybe several members. So we're starting this. This time it's the Western kind of half starting in the middle. So the first talks in Missouri and Columbia, Missouri, and then we're going to Albuquerque, New Mexico, and we're going to Denver, Colorado, and a couple of other places in Colorado like Vail and Grand Junction. We're going up to Bozeman, Montana, and then to Nevada and near Reno, Komenda, Nevada, and ending up doing a talk at the Central Library in downtown L.A. at the end. It's so fun to be able to meet members face to face. But of course, also the general public is not a membership thing at all. These are really about spreading the word about the society, but more importantly, spreading the word about being a bit more like and a bit more willing to look up and pay attention. Because just like you say, you know, the sky is this cross curricular thing. I mean, it's as much about science as it is about art because it's always been there throughout human existence. So it's always played a part in our cultures and art, but it's all about the changing status of water. So it's fundamentally to do with science and the special thing that water is on our planet. The only thing that exists in liquid solid and gas states and the natural conditions of our planet only water. Is that because it can change so easily and one of those states, the gas state, is invisible. That means there's this magical quality of clouds appearing and disappearing. It's all interrelated and it's the best subject for that kind of cross curricular way of encouraging curiosity and children. I think because you can take it this way or you can take it that way. And also you've got the added benefit of it really being helpful for mental health because of connecting to this part of nature that's ever present slowing down. And so what you need to do when you are engaging with the sky, So that's important. Also that aspect where it doesn't do what you want, it just they won't kind of perform at the tap of a finger on a screen. It's physically about looking up rather than looking down at your device. So it's good in all those ways for mental health and I think is good for your creativity actually to be engaged with the sky as well, because you embrace the kind of chaos of life. And that's where creative ideas come from, not from clearing away the distractions in life, from the blue sky, thinking no clouds. It's really to do with embracing ideas that come from left field and finding inspiration from them. That's really what what the cloudy skies and our variety of activities in the sky suggest to me. So yeah, that is a good subject for crossing all of these different areas of inquiry.
Ginny Yurich Wow. Gavin, you are so enhance our life. I'm so thankful. I love these books, love your website and love what you're doing. We always end our podcasts. We just have a minute here and we always end with a favorite outdoor memory from your childhood.
Gavin Pretor-Pinney For my childhood, it was driving to school when I was maybe four or five, being driven through London by my mum. She had a little mini, tiny little mini in the sixties, sky blue. We were driving into school and I looked out of the window and I remember my first memory of a cloud. It was this puffy one in front of the sun, and it had caused those beams of sunlight to splay out, you know, like fingers of light coming out from it with the cloud looking kind of strangely dark in the middle. We all know how arresting those beams of light are. They draw your attention to what's in the center. And it made me wonder at the time, what is that saying? You know what? I knew it's a cloud. But I mean, what's it made of and why does it stay up there? Would it be like to to sit on it? Those are all questions I have continued to try to answer throughout my adult life.
Ginny Yurich I love it. Gavin, thank you so much. This has been the coolest. I love your books and everything that you're doing. We're using it all with our family. So thank you so much for being here.
Gavin Pretor-Pinney Thanks for having me to join you, Ginny. It's been really great to chat.
