Word: clouding
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...Most dangerous are the low, dark nimbostratus (because of its poor visibility and the danger of icing) and the stormy thunderhead, cumulonimbus. Also to be avoided: the wavy, handsome billow cloud-which gives a very billowy ride...
What Are They? Scientists know surprisingly little about clouds, which were not even named or classified until 1803 (by an English druggist named Luke Howard). They know how clouds and fogs (clouds on the ground) are formed-by the cooling of humid air, which condenses water vapor on particles of dust, pollen or soot in the air. They also know what a cloud or fog is made of-water droplets (or ice crystals) so small that an 1,800-cu. ft. block of dense fog contains only one-seventh of a glass of water. But many questions, such as what...
...Clouds 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...
...Weather Bureau has just developed a photoelectric instrument, using a vertical beam of light and a phototube scanning the beam, which quickly measures cloud heights day or night by triangulation...