Overheard a storm chaser say contrails are just 'man-made cirrus' and it got me thinking about how much we actually affect the sky

Is that true or was he just being dramatic, and do you guys count contrails as clouds worth spotting?

2 comments

2 Comments

Well contrails are basically frozen water vapor so yeah they're clouds, but tell you what, I once saw a sunset where the sky was so full of them it looked like someone had drawn all over it with a white crayon. I think that counts as something worth spotting even if it's man-made.

the_nancy16d ago

Three years ago I had to explain to my nephew that the giant white lines crisscrossing the sky over his baseball game were just planes dropping vapor, not aliens writing him a message. He was so disappointed I had to grab my phone and show him a time lapse video of how they slowly spread out and turn into actual clouds. But here's the thing... I started paying attention after that and realized on a humid day those contrails stay visible for hours and totally mess up the sunset colors. So if you want to catch a really wild sky, check the humidity forecast first, anything over 60 percent and you're in for a show.