SKYWATCH FRIDAY – Buttermilk Sky (Lake Erie)

When I was a kid, my mother always called a sky like this a “buttermilk” sky. When I went to write this post, I decided to double check the name of the clouds and, in the process of checking, I found that some sites use the term “buttermilk sky” and “mackerel sky” interchangeably. My mother pointed out mackerel skies to me, too, but they were distinctly different from the buttermilk ones. I wondered how this current confusion could have happened. Maybe nobody remembers what either of them, the fish and the dairy product, actually looks like. That could be because of the fast food way we eat these days. Buttermilk and mackerel just aren’t at the top of most people’s shopping lists anymore (if they ever were!) Anyway, it looks like buttermilk skies, and the mackerel ones, too, are made up of either cirrocumulus or altocumulus clouds. These types of high-altitude clouds (along with the ones called “mare’s tails”) are my favorites.


Here is some real buttermilk for comparison (click to enlarge to see the flecks)




And here’s a mackerel sky, and a real mackerel.










There, that should clear everything up! (except for maybe the clouds themselves)








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Mackerel sky photo at http://www.windows.ucar.edu/earth/Atmosphere/images/cirrocumulus2_small.jpg
Mackerel fish photo at http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/nof/fish/images/mackerel_large.jpg
Buttermilk photo at http://www.bigoven.com/157618-Homemade-Buttermilk-recipe.html