Nimbostratus are thick, grey, featureless layers of cloud that cause prolonged, continuous, often heavy, rain, snow, or ice pellets. … Nimbostratus are the deepest of all the layer clouds – sometimes extending from 2,000ft up to around 18,000ft – and generally extend over many thousands of square miles.*
Gavin Pretor-Pinney

The heavens are telling the glory of God; and the firmament proclaims his handiwork. Day to day pours forth speech, and night to night declares knowledge. There is no speech, nor are there words; their voice is not heard; yet their voice goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world.**

If you’re in Edinburgh today, this is likely to be the cloud you were looking up at in the morning.^ It’s an astonishing thing when you think about it: thousands of tons of water hanging in the air, falling on us in a way that will not (directly) harm us.

I always try to have a book open on the natural environment. Following reading Peter Wohlleben’s The Hidden Life of Trees, I’m exploring the skies.

*From Gavin Pretor-Pinney’s The Cloudspotter’s Guide;
**Psalm 19:1-3;
^As I complete this for posting, it’s the afternoon and the cloud has broken up and has texture, so becoming another form of cloud, perhaps altocumulus.