Cloud Spotter Hats

The Cloud Appreciation Society was founded in January 2005 by Gavin Pretor-Pinney, who is still Member 001, and by September 2023 it counted over 60,000 members from 120 countries. Its manifesto is the best joke in the hobby: the society believes clouds are unjustly maligned, calls them Nature's poetry and the most egalitarian of her displays, and pledges to fight blue-sky thinking wherever it finds it. Pretor-Pinney writes of the humble Cumulus humilis that it never hurt a soul, and urges everyone to live with their head in the clouds. These cloud spotter hats are made for that crowd. The badges name the habit plainly, and the longer designs carry the manifesto voice, the cloud that looked like a dog, the favorite cloud that left without saying goodbye, and the cheap thrill of a hobby that costs nothing. Clouds earned respect from the weather authorities too: in March 2017 the WMO International Cloud Atlas added Asperitas, the first new cloud type since cirrus, a find driven by photos from society members. This page is for looking at clouds, not forecasting them, so it is a different crowd from Weather Nerd and Storm Chaser. Every design is custom embroidered on an unstructured dad hat. Wear one to the next sunny forecast you plan to resent, or give one to the friend who always stops walking to point up.