cirrus clouds
High ice crystals
Cirrus clouds are thin, wispy clouds that form at high altitudes, composed entirely of ice crystals.
They appear as delicate white streaks or curls across the sky, often described as resembling hair or feathers.
Cirrus clouds typically indicate fair weather but can signal an approaching warm front when they thicken: The cirrus clouds stretched across the horizon like brushstrokes.
- ice crystalsSolid water formations
- ice particlesFrozen water fragments
- high altitudeGreat distance upward
- upper atmosphereAir layer farthest up
- thin airSeeming nothingness
atmosphere · blue sky · sky · high · thinness · weather · wispy clouds · streaks · sublimation · wisps · mare's tails · condensation · solar radiation · ice · contrails · transparent · white · forecasting
- weather lorered sky, ring around moon, moon halos, halos, halo
- contrailscontrails, condensation trails, vapor trails
- aviation pollutionaircraft noise, carbon emissions, contrails, emissions, engine emissions
- Stratosphereozone layer, stratospheric ozone
cirrus cloudscumulus clouds
Fluffy heaped sky formations
thunderheads · dense clouds · fluffy clouds · cotton ball clouds · stratocumulus
cirrus cloudsstorm clouds
Rain-bearing atmospheric formations
thunderclouds · rain clouds · dark clouds · thunderheads · nimbostratus