Yes, that says “humility”, not “humidity”. I’ve been writing about clouds in this December Retrospective with ease and confidence, as if I really know what’s going on. Then we get to a formation like this and I have to pony up that I have no clue about this one.

That’s a good thing. We can’t be experts on all things and it’s good to be reminded of that. In graduate school, I had a moment in the engineering library where I grasped how much I would never get to read. It was a small library, relatively speaking, and the section I frequented was so cutting edge it barely had any content, yet there was still too much to wade through. Where I was standing I could see the ends of all the aisles, and I realized I couldn’t even think of enough disciplines to assign to those aisles, much less absorb what was in all of them.

As a group, humanity understands a great deal; individually, each of us should remember we have limits.

Here’s a closeup of the same formation, taken ten minutes later.

Maybe those are mammatus formations dotting the underside, so called because they look like breasts. But I forget how and why those form. I think I’m actually more confused about what is happening when looking at this second photo. Unlike the Sierra Wave, which shows up regularly, this is the only storm like this that I have seen. I hope it shows up again. I might have more ideas next time.