Remember the cloud that bothered McNeil the other day? I have done some pretty impressive research - by which I mean that I have flipped rapidly through the first few pages of THE CLOUDSPOTTER'S GUIDE by Gavin Pretor-Pinney - and decided that it is "Cumulonimbus." What does this mean? I don't know. And others - call them "cloud experts," if you will - might disagree with my assessment. Yet I stand by it for some reason. Wait a minute. It also might be "Cumulus congestus." No, no, I'm staying with "Cumulonimbus." Says THE CLOUDSPOTTER'S GUIDE: "You can't miss a Cumulonimbus incus, with its distinctive anvil-shaped top, called an 'incus.'" Meanwhile, "blog" fan Sepsey sees not an anvil, but a prairie-style bonnet. And a jaguar. The cloud, he suggests, looks like "Laura Ingalls Wilder reaching out to hug or strangle someone. But then the cloud behind her," he goes on, "looks like a jaguar, in particular the jaguar from the Jacksonville Jaguars' helmet." Frankly, we don't see it. But we present his notions in the interest of cloud fairness. Everyone sees something different in a cloud. That's the way it is with clouds!
