These awesome pictures showing eerie-looking undulatus asperatus clouds were taken across Kentucky on March 20, 2017.
It almost appears as if the sky turned into the sea.
These mid-level wave clouds were recognized as a new cloud type and given a special name in 2009.
These clouds are characterized by turbulent, but soft undulating wave motions. It kind of looks like the surface of the ocean, only looking at it from below.
First photographed at Cedar Rapids in Iowa, U.S. in 2006, undulatus asperatus has since been spotted in many parts of the world including right here in Kentuckiana.
In fact the cloud has been documented enough that the Cloud Appreciation Society (CAS) has submitted it to the Royal Meteorological Society for consideration for the next edition of the International Cloud Atlas.
If the new formation is accepted, it will be the first new entry to the atlas since 1951, and one of the more exciting ones.
Not only because undulatus asperatus do make the sky look like aliens are coming, but they’d also be the first classification discovered through crowd sourcing—average people taking pictures of new clouds and lobbying to have them recognized.
The last cloud to be officially recognized by the World Meteorological Organization was Cirrus Intortus.
It’s been observed that undulatus asperatus clouds form before midday, over areas with little vertical relief, after convective storms have moved through.
