The Weather Furcast with Hanley Bear

Ay up, everyone!  It's Hanley Bear here, with a blog about my new science project, which is learning about clouds and becoming a weather forecaster.  Sonning and Endon hope it will keep me busy while I wait for the new football season.

Polar and Grizzly's house is high up on a hill, north of Stoke-on-Trent, with views all the way to Snowdonia, the Long Mynd Hills and The Wrekin, and over to the Peak District.  We have better views now than when I moved here, because some trees had to be cut down that had Ash Die-back, and because Polar has been pruning some big shrubs during 'lockdown'.

When the other bears are napping in the garden, I like to look up and watch the clouds.  Grizzly bought a book about clouds a while ago, which is usually kept on Uppie so he and Polar can try to work out what weather will hit them when they are boating, but it has been at home while Uppie has been having the work done, and I borrowed it earlier this week.

The book explains that there are low-level clouds, mid-level clouds and high-level clouds.  Different types of cloud have different names.  You have probably heard of the high-level clouds called cirrus, which sometimes get called mares' tails but there are lots of different types of cirrus with different Latin names.  The ones in the picture on the right are called cirrus spissatus, and I think the ones in the next picture are cirrus floccus. 

High-level clouds are a good clue to what is happening in the upper atmosphere and what weather to expect.  When we saw cirrus spissatus, I told the other bears that was a sign of stormy weather within the next 48 hours, and I was right!

'Why do they always do scientific things in Latin?' I grumbled to the other bears.  'We aren't Romans!  It makes it extra difficult.'  

But Endon said it was to help scientists from all over the world communicate with each other using names for things they all understood and agreed on, like they do with plants and animals.

'Polar encourages me to use the proper Latin names for our plants,' he reminded me.  'If you're going to do proper science, you have to use the proper words.'

Endon Bear is right, of course, so I'm going to take lots of sky pictures to compare with Grizzly's book, and practice learning my proper Latin cloud names too.  I think the ones above are cirrus fibratus and the next picture is a type of altocumulus but I'm not sure which one - I think it's what's called a chaotic sky!

I've picked a really exciting time to start my new hobby, because we've had some great cloudscapes and big storms with thunder and loads of lightning.  You can just seen a huge cumulonimbus capitalis thunder cloud in the next photo.

That night we had a storm with lots of lightning.  Polar and I took some film of it which I am going to try and put in the blog - we haven't dome this before, so I hope it works.

Polar has promised to see if she can get me signed up as a BBC Weather-watcher, although she says she'll only do that if I study hard and take my weather-watching seriously, even when there is football to enjoy again.

It's small bears' bedtime now and I think we're in for a quiet night, but the storms are due to return in a couple of days.

Yay!