Clouds (film)

by C.C. Clark and Raymond Evans

For works with similar titles, see Clouds.

UNITED STATES
DEPARTMENT of AGRICULTURE
EDUCATIONAL FILM SERVICE

CLOUDS

UNITED STATES
DEPARTMENT of AGRICULTURE
EDUCATIONAL FILM SERVICE

Contribution from
THE WEATHER BUREAU

Directed by C.C. Clark and Raymond Evans

Photographed by Corliss Cramer.

"Day unto day
⁠uttereth speech---"

---"Night unto night
showeth Knowledge."

From the beginning—watchers of the skies.

Riddles—writ in vapor.

Weather-wise folk have read them for thousands of years-

What do they mean to you?

Majestic cumulus...

...the every-day cloud of the prairie country...

...often looming into a thunderhead.

Feathery cirrus...

Lowering strato-cumulus...

Gray stratus...

...which is just "fog" when you are above it.

The new-born cloud—10,000 feet above tide.

The meaning of any cloud form varies with conditions — depending largely on whether the low barometer is going or coming. For example—

"When the 'carry'

goes west,

Gude weather

is past—"

"When the 'carry'

goes east,

Gude weather

is neist."

Thus time-honored proverbs about clouds and sky often embody sound weather lore.

"In the morning,

mountains---

"In the evening,

fountains."

"Red sky in the morning,

Sailors take warning—"

"—red sky at night

Is the sailors' delight."

"Mackerel scales

and mares' tails

make lofty ships

carry low sails."

Even ships that ride the storm sometimes come to grief—
The ill-fated Shenandoah among the clouds.

"Wool-pack" clouds, (cumulus).

"Sheep clouds" (alto-cumulus).

The "anvil"
a shape often assumed by a thunder head.

These are the script of the elements, in which the riddles of the firmament are written.

These—
and their countless kindred forms.

I am the daughter

of earth and water,

And the nursling of the sky;

I pass through the pores

of the ocean and shores;

I change, but I cannot die...

For after the rain

when, with never a stain,

The pavilion of heaven is bare,

And the winds and sunbeams,

with their convex gleams,

Build up the blue dome of air,

I silently laugh

at my own cenotaph,

And out of the caverns of rain,

Like a child from the womb,

like a ghost from the tomb,

I arise and upbuild it again.

–"The Cloud,"
Shelley.

For information on cloud forms write to the Weather Bureau, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Washington, D.C.

UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE

1862⁠1889
AGRICULTURE IS THE
FOUNDATION OF MANUFACTURE
AND COMMERCE