Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A high-altitude, thin, hazy cloud, usually covering the sky and often producing a halo effect.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun meteorology A principal high-level cloud type appearing as a whitish veil, usually fibrous but sometimes smooth, which may totally cover the sky and which often produces halo phenomena, either partially or completely. Sometimes a banded aspect may appear, but the intervals between the bands are filled with thinner cloud veil. The edge of the veil of cirrostratus may be straight and clean-cut, but more often it is irregular and fringed with cirrus. Some of the
ice crystals that comprise the cloud are large enough to fall and thereby produce afibrous aspect. Cirrostratus occasionally may be so thin and transparent as to render it almost indiscernible, especially through haze or at night. At such times, the existence of ahalo may be the only revealing feature, such as producing a halo around the moon. Abbreviated:Cs .
Etymologies
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Examples
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Only at the highest levels—up to 45,000 feet—do we find the ice-crystal clouds cirrus ("like white locks of hair"), cirrocumulus ("like grains of rice") and cirrostratus ("a light, milky whitening of the blue").
Cirrus Concerns Peter Pesic 2011
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One of Clams Casino's best tracks – one of the tracks of the year, in my opinion – is I'm God, a beautiful cirrostratus of a song that Lil B ended up rapping over, ruining its delicate charms in the process.
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High-altitude clouds—cirrus, cirrocumulus, and cirrostratus—reside between three and seven miles above sea level.
MY EMPIRE OF DIRT Manny Howard 2010
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High-altitude clouds—cirrus, cirrocumulus, and cirrostratus—reside between three and seven miles above sea level.
MY EMPIRE OF DIRT Manny Howard 2010
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High-altitude clouds—cirrus, cirrocumulus, and cirrostratus—reside between three and seven miles above sea level.
MY EMPIRE OF DIRT Manny Howard 2010
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High-altitude clouds—cirrus, cirrocumulus, and cirrostratus—reside between three and seven miles above sea level.
MY EMPIRE OF DIRT Manny Howard 2010
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High-altitude cirrus, cirrostratus and middle-altitude altostratus clouds are found well in advance of the front.
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Weather Phenomenon Prior to the Passing of the Front Contact with the Front After the Passing of the Front Temperature Cool Warming suddenly Warmer then leveling off Atmospheric Pressure Decreasing steadily Leveling off Slight rise followed by a decrease Winds South to southeast Variable South to southwest Precipitation Showers, snow, sleet or drizzle Light drizzle None Clouds Cirrus, cirrostratus, altostratus, nimbostratus, and then stratus Stratus, sometimes cumulonimbus Clearing with scattered stratus, sometimes scattered cumulonimbus
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Above the surface location of the cold front, high altitude cirrostratus and middle altitude altocumulus clouds are common.
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Along the gently sloping warm front, the lifting of moist air produces first nimbostratus clouds followed by altostratus and cirrostratus.
Mid-latitude cyclone 2008
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