Edward Graham: Clouds: How to Identify Nature’s Most Fleeting Forms (2025), Princeton University Press, 224 pages, hardcover, ISBN 978 0 691 26248 2. Approx £20-£25.

There are several fine guides to the identification of clouds, but none like this. Edward Graham, an atmospheric physicist and meteorologist, has chosen to illustrate this with an exceptional collection of paintings rather than photos. Although the author provides a little information about the artists responsible, and discusses each painting briefly, this book isn’t about the art of skying. It presents a throughly accessible systematic account of clouds, their naming and classification, and their physics.

A foreword by Richard Hamblyn, a prolific writer on clouds, establishes the link between paintings of clouds and their science. Graham then lays the foundation of cloud classification and explains some of their relevant physics. The main sequence of chapters deals with low, mid-level and high cloud species systematically, before concluding with a chapter on rare and unique types of cloud. There’s also an excellent and comprehensive index.

To give you a taste of what’s in store, here’s a small selection of paintings that appear, with Graham’s formal identification of the type of cloud in each.

Cumulonimbus calvus flammagenitus.

Cumulus congestus.

Altostratus translucidus with undulatus and perlucidus.

Stratocumulus radiatus.

Altocumulus undulatus, a mackerel sky.

Asperitas.

If you haven’t already ordered a copy, now’s the time to do so.