The current heatwave has been causing some fascinating cloud formations over Wales. Clouds are continually changing and appear in an infinite variety of forms, and the warm weather has brought some changes to the skies.
Over the weekend, stunning pictures from Pembrokeshire captured long ribbons of wispy cirrus clouds, completely made up of ice crystals. You can see the stunning pictures here.
And on Sunday (July 10), when temperatures rose to a high of 27.9°C in Wales, stunning patchwork clouds were pictured in the skies above Brecon.
Read more: How long the heatwave is likely to last and what temperatures we can expect this week.
According to the Met Office classification of cloud, they are simply known as "fair weather clouds". Fair weather cumulus have the appearance of floating cotton and have a lifetime of between five and 40 minutes.
A spokesman for the Met Office said that they are: "Medium level clouds that are formed by the heat."
Fair weather clouds are normally fuelled by thermals that rise upward from the earth's surface. As they rise, the water vapour within cools and condenses. They typically have large areas of clear sky between them. Without a continued supply of rising air, the cloud begins to erode and eventually disappears.
The classification of clouds is based on a book written by Luke Howard, a London pharmacist and amateur meteorologist, in 1803. His book, The Modifications of Clouds, named the various cloud structures he had studied. The terms he used were readily accepted by the meteorological community and are still used across the world today.
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