My favorite kinds of clouds are (by far) cumulus and cumulonimbus, often seen in the tropics and subtropics. They’re so majestic and impressive. Back when I lived in the Southern US I loved waking up every morning and seeing them in the distance, and getting closer before releasing all the water inside them sometime between 1 and 4pm.
I currently live in Northern Spain and the clouds are nowhere near as impressive. Sure, they look nice, but kind of underwhelming. At least when compared to the South. Lol

If I remember right, that photo was taken (several years ago) from a passenger window during an approach into La Guardia. Planes landing at LGA don’t normally pass directly over Manhattan, but it can happen.

Fascinating post!

I trained for my Private Pilot License on a vast grass strip at Chapel Hill NC in 1967 at age 18. (The entire training cost…$500. Now it’s around $20,000) I was flying a cross country mission when I saw a LONG sinister dark cloud front headed my way. I immediately turned tail, firewalled my Cessna 150 and fled back to CH. I arrived just as virga clouds were coming in across the field. What a beautiful sight! Rain slanted down but not reaching the ground like “God rays.”

After I got my Instrument Rating, I liked to take friends on trips to that foreign place, Cloudland. Conditions had to be right: gray day under a solid overcast, nearing sunset for optimal color.

I’d climb through the overcast, feeling my passenger’s unease at being totally enveloped in gray cloud. Then, breaking out on top, there were gasps at the beauty of Cloudland with its towering pink cumulus spires and deep cloud valleys. The cabin would fall silent, my passengers spellbound.

“Letting down” could be risky. On one flight, I broke out over the nearby “airline” airport, Raleigh Durham. I know: I was a bad, BAD pilot. I shouldn’t have been doing any of that. But I loved those visits to Cloudland and my passengers’ delight.

Please visit CamBeckBooks.com. I’ve put up some interesting writings on aviation–and the moon landings. I hope to start hawking my wares (books) in future from that website.

It would be interesting to hear the circumstances of the Empire-State-Building shot. Surely not during a VFR approach to Newark.

The coolest I’ve seen is three small lenticular clouds stacked above a hill near my house in SF. I’d post a photo if I could.

During the three-day ban on commercial flights, very few planes were in the sky — by and large, air traffic was limited to military flights. Because of the lack of planes, there was also a lack of contrails. The lack of contrails corresponded to a measurable, significant increase in temperature, leading some to believe that contrails help depress global warming — a theory echoed by World War II data as well.

Links:
http://web.archive.org/web/20100925122227/http://articles.cnn.com/2002-08-07/tech/contrails.climate_1_contrails-cirrus-clouds-david-travis?_s=PM:TECH

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/contrails-aviation-affects-climate/

I don’t know any chemtrail nuts but would be amused to run this by them.