2185: Cumulonimbus

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Cumulonimbus
The rarest of all clouds is the altocumulenticulostratonimbulocirruslenticulomammanoctilucent cloud, caused by an interaction between warm moist air, cool dry air, cold slippery air, cursed air, and a cloud of nanobots.
Title text: The rarest of all clouds is the altocumulenticulostratonimbulocirruslenticulomammanoctilucent cloud, caused by an interaction between warm moist air, cool dry air, cold slippery air, cursed air, and a cloud of nanobots.

Explanation

Ambox notice.png This explanation may be incomplete or incorrect: Created by a CUMULONIMBOCUNIMBULONIMBUS CLOUD. Please mention here why this explanation isn't complete: Cold slippery air from title text not mentioned yet! Translating the cloud names from Latin would give more information and possibly intended entertainment. Maybe someone who can do better than translate.google.com could do it? Do NOT delete this tag too soon.
If you can address this issue, please edit the page! Thanks.

This comic follows the naming of clouds. As with other lists (like in 2022: Sports Champions), it starts off as normal but then gets more unusual until it is unrealistic.

Cumulus
The first panel shows a cumulus cloud. These are your typical clouds, and are relatively small. Cumulus clouds form when warm (and thus rising), moist air condenses when it hits the dew point, the temperature at which relative humidity hits 100%. Cumulus clouds with sharp, defined borders are still growing. When they stop growing (because the rising moist air is exhausted), they get fuzzy and floofy, and eventually dissolve.
Cumulonimbus
The second panel shows a cumulonimbus cloud. This cloud can be described as anvil shaped, and they both cause local rain showers and thunderstorms. Cumulonimbus clouds begin at the altitude where dew point occurs, and growth abruptly stops at the tropopause. The tropopause is defined as the lowest altitude at which the vertical temperature gradient is less than 2 degrees celsius per kilometer. (At altitudes that are relevant to us mere mortals, temperature decreases at a rate of 8.5 to 11.5 °C per kilometer of altitude, depending on humidity.)
Cumulonimbulonimbus
The third panel shows an even bigger cloud and names it cumulonimbulonimbus. The humor here comes from building up an even bigger name (combining cumulonimbus + an additional "nimb-" and "-ulo") for the cloud as its size increases.
Cumulonimbulonimbulocumulonimbus
The fourth panel shows an absurdly large cloud and gives it the name cumulonimbulonimbulocumulonimbus. This cloud may look like a soaker.
Altocumulenticulostratonimbulocirruslenticulomammanoctilucent
The title text continues this list by naming a new cloud that is also supposedly the rarest. It requires cursed air and nanobots to make, which is impossible since neither of those exist.[citation needed]
The name of this cloud can be explained with:
altus = high
cumulus = growing
lenticularis = lens-shaped
stratus = layered
nimbus = dark cloud
cirrus = "curling lock of hair"
mammatus = breast-like (some thunderstorm clouds form breast-like extrusions, which signify sinking air)
noctilucent = "bright at night" (a cloud-like structure formed from ice crystals, often formed after volcano eruptions and other cataclysmic events and illuminated by a just-set sun)

The International Cloud Atlas defines the cloud types that are recognized by the WMO, the World Meteorological Organization. It was first published in 1896. Similarly, IUPAC publishes a manual that allows chemists to name chemical compounds in a consistent manner. The Altocumulenticulostratonimbulocirruslenticulomammanoctilucent may thus be a pun on IUPAC, which (theoretically) offers a unique name for each possible strand of DNA and other complex molecules.

The title text also mentions a common joke in weather communities, making fun of the common trope that thunderstorms form when "warm moist air", meets "cold dry air", which is an extreme oversimplification. An example of this trope is here.

Trivia

  • On xkcd, this comic replaced a preceding "disappearing comic", which also had the sequence number 2185 and was designed to disappear completely and leave no trace in xkcd's history or archives. The original comic does not appear in explainxkcd's comic navigation either, and is hence linked here: 2185: Disappearing Sunday Update

Transcript

[Drawing of a small cloud with title "Cumulus"]
[Drawing of a medium sized tall cloud with title "Cumulonimbus"]
[Drawing of a large cloud with title "Cumulonimbulonimbus"]
[Drawing of a huge and very complicated cloud with title "Cumulonimbulonimbulocumulonimbus"]
comment.png add a comment! ⋅ comment.png add a topic (use sparingly)! ⋅ Icons-mini-action refresh blue.gif refresh comments!

Discussion

Hey, the back arrow here doesn't go back to yesterday's "Disappearing Sunday Update" 162.158.75.28 18:17, 5 August 2019 (UTC) That's why it was disappearing. 172.68.226.46 18:42, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

I think this could be improved by expanding out the translations from latin for the various parts of each cloud's name. I.e., cumulus is just "heaped"; cumulo-nimbus would be "heaped raincloud"; cumulo-nimbulo-nimbus would be "heaped rainy raincloud"; cumulo-nimbulo-nimbulo-cumulo-nimbus would be "heaped, rainy, rainy, heaped raincloud", and alto-cumu-lenticulo-strato-nimbulo-cirrus-lenticulo-mamma-noctilucent would be "mid-altitude, heaped, standing, rainy, wispy, standing, highly turbulent, and lit at night." (Some of these descriptors are contradictory; cirrus clouds can not also be mammatus clouds.) (And yes, "mammatus" clouds mean what you think they mean.) 162.158.142.82 19:08, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

It says "soaker" in the description of the fourth cloud. Do we mean "super soaker"? It does look like a super soaker. I didn't dare change the description in case I am missing something. Cow (talk) 20:15, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

It says "soaker" in the description of the fourth cloud. It should say "Super Soaker"! 162.158.214.148 11:27, 6 August 2019 (UTC)
I have corrected this with a link to 220. --Kynde (talk) 12:58, 6 August 2019 (UTC)

I added that is may also look like a faucet. See https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQzDGZ1TMWwki03pJ9dbpJhaXeq2mVq3fcO1GeDfPhx_5BHMT7K. The little nub on the back top could represent the stopper control, and the little nub on the front could be the teat that holds the bucket handle. I couldn't find a picture of one with a little nub on the front to hold the bucket handle - maybe it's old fashioned and they don't make them like that anymore - but I distinctly remember then from my childhood. update: found one https://as1.ftcdn.net/jpg/01/44/45/98/500_F_144459810_nJ4eVcyNP0NWkEoXYFfHzvda2uEJXOhA.jpg

Could we modify the navigation system to go to the disappearing one? That's right, Jacky720 just signed this (talk | contribs) 20:21, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

No, the system should go through the comics as they are on xkcd. But there has been added trivia sections to both this and the previous comic with link to Disappearing Sunday Update. --Kynde (talk) 12:50, 6 August 2019 (UTC)
You an find this and other comics not part of the normal xkcd relase schedule here: Category:Extra comics --Kynde (talk) 12:58, 6 August 2019 (UTC)

The explanation for the fifth cloud splits noctilucent into noctus and lucent and saying they have nothing to do with clouds when its actually referring to a type of very high altitude cloud seen rarely around twilight/dusk. They form from ice crystals and are illuminated by the sun below the horizon. --Kirkerbot (talk) 23:31, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

The listed lapse rate for the troposphere seems high - the dry adiabatic lapse rate is around 9.8 °C/km, and Wikipedia indicates the average lapse rate is around 6.5 °C/km. Tovodeverett (talk) 05:02, 6 August 2019 (UTC)

We should add some more info on the cloud types that "Altocumulenticulostratonimbulocirruslenticulomammanoctilucent" seems to reference (altocumulus, stratus, cirrus etc.) Arcorann (talk) 11:01, 6 August 2019 (UTC)

I've added <wbr> tags to the long latin names, so they break at sensible places. If someone could verify that I've added them to the right places, that'd be great. Also, maybe we should/could use a soft hyphen (&shy;) instead? -- //gir.st/ (talk) 12:26, 6 August 2019 (UTC)


Can someone create a category for "Weather"? This is one of many comics about weather, but I don't have permissions to create the category. Natg19 (talk) 16:37, 6 August 2019 (UTC)

Maybe... See personal message about creating such a category. I have removed it until we find out if that category is relevant enough. Should it be called just "Weather"? --Kynde (talk) 07:21, 7 August 2019 (UTC)
After a minor discussion on Natg19's user page we have chosen to create the Category:Weather after all, and with this name. Please feel free to add comics about weather to it. This one has of course been added --Kynde (talk) 11:24, 9 August 2019 (UTC)
I feel like there have been plenty enough comics about weather to warrant such a category. And I DO find categories and groups work best when named / defined as simply as possible, to make it easier to select group members. :) "Weather" is a very yes or no name, either a comic is about weather or it isn't, nice and easy. NiceGuy1 (talk) 04:06, 15 August 2019 (UTC)


The last cloud does look like a supersoaker, but it also reminds me of something expanding fractally. 108.162.212.65 17:49, 6 August 2019 (UTC)

Whoever added the "citation needed" to the statement that cursed air does not exist has never gone in a bathroom after me.Daemonik (talk) 10:32, 7 August 2019 (UTC)

Anyone getting major OREREREREO vibes here?

Why was my addition that "The title text also mentions a common joke in weather communities, making fun of the common trope that thunderstorms form when "warm moist air", meets "cold dry air", which is an extreme oversimplification. An example of this trope is here. " removed? No explanation was given.

Maybe because you don't sign your comments? :) Seriously, maybe it was that you left in the unnecessary "feature" parameter in that YouTube link (you only really need the "v" parameter), or that you included the "t" parameter (jump to 448 seconds into the video) but didn't mean to? NiceGuy1 (talk) 04:06, 15 August 2019 (UTC)