Dr. Michael Albert Enlightens Us
About Clouds
By Jane
Harred
Who among us
hasn’t had a memorable experience with the weather? We can all recall monster hailstorms or
violent winds, and I am acquainted with several people who have been struck by
lightning and lived to tell the tale.
And let’s not forget picnics under blue skies and fleecy clouds or
sunsets viewed from a warm beach.
At our
February 2018 meeting, cultural geographer Dr. Michael Albert’s presentation,
“Short-Term Weather Forecasting from Cloud Formations,” got us all ready to
look at the sky, identify clouds, and predict what’s coming.
Dr. Albert’s
presentation described features of four types and several subtypes of clouds,
accompanied with many images, to help us learn to identify clouds’ formations
and altitudes and offered tips on using these identifications to predict the
weather. His audience can now all
dispense with those TV weather people and their hype because we know what sorts
of clouds indicate fair weather is ahead or what to expect when a cloud
develops the shape of an anvil.
And since we
all like—or at least like to hear about—dramatic weather events, Dr. Albert
concluded his presentation with some “weather porn”: images and descriptions of violent weather
and the mayhem it can cause as well as the beauty it can bring: double rainbows, colorful sunsets.
Dr. Albert
is a retired UW-River Falls professor of geography. He earned his PhD from the University of
Minnesota with a focus on urban geography.
As an undergraduate at the University of Pennsylvania, he studied both
geography and meteorology. His interest
in weather and climate extends back to dramatic weather he experienced during his
childhood. He participated in the
Minnesota State Climatologist’s Backyard Rain Gauge Network from 1978 to 1992
and has served as a Skywarn Spotter for the National Weather Service.
