Clouds Some clouds are good news messengers and others the warning flags of impending doom. Clouds tell the story AND deliver the goods. There are differences between the messengers and the deliverers that are obvious and will inform the knowledgeable sailor about upcoming weather. Wind can form around clouds and cloud formation can produce wind.
Clouds store enormous amounts of energy.
There are certain types of cloud formations that we can call atmospheric batteries and we all know that batteries can be overcharged, they MUST release energy. When this energy is released as wind, rain or both, we call it weather. In order to keep it simple we're primarily going to discuss cloud shapes and what they're likely to mean to you in the immediate or near future. Cloud definitions come primarily from their shape and altitude in our atmosphere. Most instructors and meteorologists take that as second nature and try to instruct us by defining shapes and altitude placement using combined words to form groupings.