Word: cirrus
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...Project Cirrus (a joint cloud study program of the services and G.E.) has been very successful, said Dr. Langmuir. Thirty-five of its cloud-seeding flights changed super cooled clouds* into ice or snow crystals. Last October, at Albuquerque, two large cumulus clouds were sprinkled with dry ice. They turned into a furious thunderstorm that drenched Albuquerque with heavy rain at a time of year when rain is uncommon...
...Club for the finals. After a few rounds of easy ones, the spellers began to trip. Escutcheon, toboggan, chrysalis, mollify, appurtenant, desecrate, diaphanous, discernible, penitentiary . . . (The master of ceremonies tried to soothe the kids who flubbed: "Too bad, Sara, you stayed up there real long.") Troche, scintilla, poliomyelitis, calyx, cirrus, piccalilli, lachrymose, geodesy, insipid . . . ("That's all right, Martin. I always spell 'insipid' with a 'c,' too.") Syllabus, addendum, flaccid, desiccate, accordion, surcingle, maraschino...
...have general upper and lower limits†: in middle latitudes the highest clouds are six or seven miles above sea level (because air gets no colder above that height); the lowest (except for fogs) are at about 2,000 ft. In thickness, a cloud may vary from a wafer (cirrus) to several miles (cumulonimbus...
...high, thin, wispy cirrus cloud and its relatives, the milky cirrostratus and ripply cirrocumulus, are ideal cover for high-altitude bombers: they provide a one-way screen that allows an airman to see his target but hides him from planes or groundlings below...
...Clouds as weather forecasters: thin cirrus clouds or altocumuli mean fair weather for at least 24 hours ("the higher the clouds, the finer the weather"); thickening cirrus and layers of clouds moving in different directions mean rain; big cumulus clouds in the morning mean thunder showers in the afternoon; persisting fog means rain by afternoon or night...