Word: cirrus
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...Project Cirrus (a joint cloud study program of the services and G.E.) has been very successful, said Dr. Langmuir. Thirty-five of its cloud-seeding flights changed super cooled clouds* into ice or snow crystals. Last October, at Albuquerque, two large cumulus clouds were sprinkled with dry ice. They turned into a furious thunderstorm that drenched Albuquerque with heavy rain at a time of year when rain is uncommon...
With low-hanging stratus (i.e., solid layer) clouds, Project Cirrus was just as successful. Langmuir told how the planes had drawn Greek letters and "racetrack" patterns in stratus clouds by dropping small amounts of dry ice (see cut). Sometimes the cloud was dissipated so completely that blue sky showed through the gaps. Langmuir believes that dry ice can be used to clear clouds from over airports...
...Club for the finals. After a few rounds of easy ones, the spellers began to trip. Escutcheon, toboggan, chrysalis, mollify, appurtenant, desecrate, diaphanous, discernible, penitentiary . . . (The master of ceremonies tried to soothe the kids who flubbed: "Too bad, Sara, you stayed up there real long.") Troche, scintilla, poliomyelitis, calyx, cirrus, piccalilli, lachrymose, geodesy, insipid . . . ("That's all right, Martin. I always spell 'insipid' with a 'c,' too.") Syllabus, addendum, flaccid, desiccate, accordion, surcingle, maraschino...
...high, thin, wispy cirrus cloud and its relatives, the milky cirrostratus and ripply cirrocumulus, are ideal cover for high-altitude bombers: they provide a one-way screen that allows an airman to see his target but hides him from planes or groundlings below...
...Clouds as weather forecasters: thin cirrus clouds or altocumuli mean fair weather for at least 24 hours ("the higher the clouds, the finer the weather"); thickening cirrus and layers of clouds moving in different directions mean rain; big cumulus clouds in the morning mean thunder showers in the afternoon; persisting fog means rain by afternoon or night...