There may be a new variety of cloud floating in the skies overhead – the undulatus asperatus.

According to the Cloud Appreciation Society (CAS) – an international group of weather enthusiasts – this new cloud resembles an agitated wave that covers most of the sky.  First photographed in 2006 by a cloud-watcher in Iowa, it has since been spotted several times around the globe.  The CAS is now lobbying the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) to acknowledge the undulatus asperatus as an official new variety of cloud.

There are currently ten cloud types officially recognized by the WMO.  Most of these have a number of sub-varieties  – specific Latin adjectives to describe their formation.  If the undulatus asperatus is accepted as a new variety, it will be the first new cloud added to the WMO’s International Cloud Atlas since 1951.

Undulatus Asperatus Clouds

Image Credit: Cloud Appreciation Society/Ken Prior