The European Meteorological Calendar 2002 published by the European Meteorological Society is now available from WeatherOnline UK & Ireland. It's full of breathtaking pictures and fascinating facts and essays about weather - written by meterology pro's and weather enthusiastics. All articles and facts are presented tri-lingual in English, French and German. This year's theme is wind.

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For example, this is the October picture and the detailed description by the author:

Lenticular Clouds (ger: Foehnwolken; fr: Nuages en pile d'assiettes)

Lenticular clouds form on the lee side of mountain barriers in regularly spaced bands. Due to variable humidity stratification they sometimes appear in layers forming a pile of plates or pile d'assiettes as in this example over the Moray Firth in North East Scotland. These clouds were related to a well established south-westerly airflow over the Northern Highlands, the humid layer giving rise to each 'plate' is fairly shallow, and the amount of the wave is also limited, so each stack resembles a series of shallow inverted dishes.

Grazing illumination from the setting sun is catching the edges of each plate, the bottom of which remains in shadow. They closely resemble a drawing of extraordinary cloud made by Piazzi Smyth, the Astronomer Royal for Scotland, in 1881, and published in his book Madeira Meteorologic (Edinburgh, 1882). Text and picture by David Monteith.