About Us

You know us. And by that, we don’t mean you know us all by name and can point us out as we meet over coffee at Cushman Market or the Black Sheep Deli (admittedly, our favorite haunts) - after all, the kind of people who might author and regularly post to an Amherst-based, New England blog focused on clouds and weather are potentially vast in number. No, what we mean is that you have come across us in your travels and can probably identify a kindred weather and cloud fanatic by certain tell-tale signs. Heck, since you are here reading this, we’ll go out on a limb (even a cold, wet nor’easter blown limb) and speculate that you are probably one of us. We are, first and foremost, that one person in every local gathering who doesn’t hesitate to tell everyone about an impending weather event days before it hits the news. We will simultaneously reassure you that “everything will probably be fine” even as we nod ominously and add, “well, then again, it could turn north.” We are very likely to receive constant pinging text messages from NOAA's Skywarn office during weather advisories and warnings. And, for that matter, we know the difference between weather advisories and storm warnings, weather bombs and nor’easters (you did know a nor’easter can also be a weather bomb, right?), cumulus clouds and cirrus clouds, and cumulonimbus, stratus, and – well – don’t even get us started on clouds. Actually, that’s not exactly true. Some of us have no idea about cloud terminology and don’t in fact belong to the Cloud Appreciation Society. Some of us just like looking at clouds (yes, we all have our “Head in the Clouds”), and from time to time we also take pictures of them.

We love to read about weather – everything from news reports about the latest “Snowmageddon” (or “Snowpocalypse” if  you prefer) to poetry about gentle breezes and unbearable heat. Actually, to be perfectly honest, we rarely use terminology like Snowmageddon or Snowpocalypse, you’ll be relieved to know. We think there’s plenty of perfectly descriptive, plain English to describe an extreme weather event, and we also know full well that as soon as you call something “Snowpocalypse,” it’s quite likely to end up as a dusting of snow that melts after half an hour. 

We believe human activity is causing climate change.

We can thoroughly recount where we were when the Halloween storm of 2011 hit – and how long we had no power. We also have, at our fingertips, accounts of storms that hit without warning, microbursts that destroyed “this house and that house, but missed ours” (or we could also be quoting from the movie Twister right there), and drives home on a snowy New England night when the only way to move forward was to put chains on our tires and then open the door and drive by the barely visible yellow line down the middle of the road.

You might not even know we fixate on clouds or weather, since we tend to pass easily in social situations until weather comes up as a topic. Even then, weather being such a popular New England conversation starter, you might initially mistake us for someone with just average interest – that is, until some 30 minutes later when you find yourself still talking about the weather.  We love regaling each other with stories – about living through a tornado in Kansas, hurricane on Long Island, a perfect storm (of sorts) off the Cape (and the boat ride that would not end), blizzard in the Alps, or blinding heat in Thailand.

You will not hear us comment on how silly people are being about the weather forecast. (Although we will comment on how funny people are with the crazy milk and bread runs right before every storm – I mean, isn’t everyone always prepared???)

We are amateur cloud spotters, not meteorologists (although, like baseball fans everywhere, we are frequently compelled to second guess the professionals). Ask us why we are so obsessed, and we will tell you that the world around us is unpredictable, fierce, awesome, grand, terrible and heart-achingly beautiful, occasionally all at the same time. Watching the clouds, like star gazing, mountain climbing, or riding the waves on the ocean, connects us to something vast - the earth, the sky, the wind and the energy moving through everything. 

You may contact us directly by sending an email to: 
cloudsamherst [@] gmail [dot] com
The [at] and [dot] are done to keep email addresses from being collected by 
spammers and harvesting robots. You just have to replace them for [@] and [.] 
when you write your e-mail.