Clouds have a silver lining

Despite sceptics who feel they are a cause for gloom, the first Irish Cloud Festival aims to show that clouds are beautiful. Joe McNamee reports

IT’S a racing certainty a more suspicious class of reader will be scouring calendars to check the date but, no, it’s not April Fool’s Day or anything of that ilk — the very first Irish Cloud Festival really is taking place in West Cork this July.

Still, it’s hard to fault anyone pondering the wisdom of such an event in Ireland, where, the most boorish of rainclouds seem to take up near-permanent summer residence, equally reluctant to move elsewhere during the off-season, particularly, the much-maligned nimbostratus — thick, grey, featureless murk swallowing up sun and sky for days at a time, always bringing at least rain.

But up and beyond those dark clouds, literally and metaphorically, we can tune in to possibly the greatest show in nature’s universe, what Gavin Pretor-Pinney, author of The Cloudspotter’s Guide, calls nature’s most egalitarian display, since everyone has an equally good view.

It is very much the Western way to consider contemplation of clouds a prime indicator of chronic and debilitating dreaminess, an ailment invariably leading to outbreaks of poetry. But that’s not the global position: many cultures venerate clouds — chillingly, more nightmare than dream, are attempts to control clouds, in particular, ongoing US military investigations into manipulating clouds as weapons through flooding or extreme drought.

For thousands of generations, effective amateur meteorologists — sailors, farmers and any for whom weather conditions can mean the difference between life and death — are those with the keenest understanding of clouds.

And then there is a unique cloud in North Queensland, one of the remotest parts of Australia. Dubbed Morning Glory, it can stretch to 600 miles (as long as Britain) and move at speeds up to 35mph. A small select band of Australian glider pilots practise what is considered to be one of the most amazing experiences a glider pilot can have: surfing Morning Glory.

“It seems a shame we rather moan about clouds in Britain and Ireland,” says Pretor-Pinney. “We feel there are too many of them. My feeling is they are one of the most beautiful parts of nature, wholly under-appreciated, each day is like a new page to read.”

Pretor-Pinney is founder of The Cloud Appreciation Society (TCAS): “I am just an amateur who loves clouds but in 2004 was asked to give a talk at a literary festival. I was anxious as to whether anyone would even turn up so I treated it lightly, called it The Inaugural Lecture of The Cloud Appreciation Society. Lots of people came, many coming up afterwards asking how they could join. Maybe some of the best things begin as a joke. I’ve never had to promote it, membership just continues to grow. Members do tend to have a more poetic sensibility, interested in looking at their surroundings in a positive way rather than complaining.”

Eventually, regular inquiries prompted Pretor-Pinney to write The Cloudspotter’s Guide. It was rejected by 28 publishers but has gone on to sell a phenomenal 250,000 copies and has been translated into 18 languages.

Clouds are visible masses of water droplets or frozen ice crystals suspended in earth’s atmosphere, forming when warm air meets cold, cooling to the point where water vapour molecules in the warm air clump together, condensing to become visible.

But simplification grossly undersells the enormously complex, varied and constantly altering atmospheric conditions producing infinite variations of the 10 main cloud types, capable of inspiring awe, fear, joy and depression, all in a single day. The Cloudspotter’s Guide and follow-up The Cloud Collector’s Handbook are essential reading for those interested in learning more.

“My first memory is being driven to school and looking out through the window at a big, puffy cloud in front of the sun,” says Pretor-Pinney. “My attention was probably drawn by the fingers of sunlight shining out (before I’d heard of ‘crepuscular rays’) and I wondered what it was made of, how and why it stayed up there, typical questions children ask. I think kids are rather fascinated by clouds and are really drawn to them. Until they grow up and succumb to the herd mentality and start moaning about them along with most other people.”

While the Irish may pine for clear blue skies, it is not a universally-held desire. Gabriel Byrne eventually quit Hollywood for New York because he missed experiencing each season in turn and the sense of living through nature’s cycles. Pretor-Pinney, spent seven months in Rome and also began to pine for a break from the monotony of near-endless blue.

But does our more heavily clouded environment, particularly Ireland, the first European port of call for much of the weather fronts coming in from the Atlantic, have an affect on national temperament?

“It is very hard to separate out something so specific from something so complex,” says Pretor-Pinney. “Certainly, being deprived of sunlight can affect us. But we could look at it another way by looking at a very different climate. In Iran or Iraq, when they are lucky or blessed, they say their sky is always filled with clouds. In India, the large storm clouds that herald the start of monsoon season are the subject of very evocative, ancient Sanskrit poetry. It is considered a very romantic time of the year, they are seen as messengers for change of life, of rebirth.

“It is possible people in other regions are more naturally disposed to appreciating them because they bring vital rain, but there is always the very human tendency to see the grass as being always greener on the other side.”

And what if we are treated to an Irish rarity, cloudless, blue skies for the entire festival?

“I think it would be entirely in keeping with such a festival,” says Pretor-Pinney cheerily. “Cloudspotting is about a frame of mind — clouds don’t do what you want, when you want.”

- Gavin Pretor-Pinney will headline the first Irish Cloud Festival, organised by Sally McKenna and hosted by The Irish Cloud Appreciation Society (TICAS), which will take place in Skibbereen and the surrounding areas on July 26 and 27 July. See www.ticas.ie

Picture: Irish Examiner photographer Denis Minihane is not known for having his head in the clouds but like all good photographers he has learned to look up. The picture above shows a dramatic cloud formation in the shape of a whale’s tail captured by Denis in the skies above Bantry.