Portrait

Obsessive cloud spotter Gary McArthur may be the first to have discovered and named a new cloud type in more than 60 years.

Cloud spotter

CLOUD SPOTTING HAS become a global phenomenon. The UK-based Cloud Appreciation Society now has 42,568 members. Among the 2483 in Australia is Gary McArthur, of Burnie, Tasmania. Gary takes cloud spotting seriously, and has done so since he was a boy. In his teens, he built his own meteorological instruments, including a rain gauge, wind vane and Stevenson screen – and recorded readings twice daily.

Gary became a geologist, but meteorology never lost its magic. After moving to Tasmania in 1980, he became a volunteer observer for the Bureau of Meteorology (BOM). He runs an automated weather station on his roof in Burnie that uploads information and photos to his website.*

Gary gained international kudos when he photographed a dramatic wavy formation that the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) is now classifying as a new cloud sub-type. The last time it added an official cloud formation was 1951. It will be named asperitas (Latin for ‘roughness’) and is a stratiform cloud that appears dark and ominous but rarely develops into a storm.

“In February 2004 I did my early-morning weather observations and noticed some interesting, middle-level clouds approaching,” Gary says. As he drove to work, he watched the clouds turn from interesting to spectacular. “People in the street were stopping in their tracks.” The WMO will use Gary’s photo as the asperitas reference image in the International Cloud Atlas.

“You never see the same sky twice,” Gary adds. “You might see a really special formation, but it is so transient and so short-lived that you are very lucky to capture it.”