Cirrus cloud spreading from the top of a dying cumulonimbus. Cirrus forms from tropical cyclones, and is commonly seen fanning out from the eyewalls of hurricanes. A large shield of cirrus and cirrostratus typically accompanies the high altitude outflow of hurricanes or typhoons, and these can make the underlying rain bands—and sometimes even the eye—difficult to detect in satellite photographs. Thunderstorms can form dense cirrus at their tops. As the cumulonimbus cloud in a thunderstorm grows vertically, the liquid water droplets freeze when the air temperature reaches the freezing point. The anvil cloud takes its shape because the temperature inversion at the
Ordinary Thunderstorms Ordinary Thunderstorms Ordinary Thunderstorms is a novel by William Boyd. It explores the dark side of London's underworld and the international pharmaceutical industry. Adam Kindred is a recently divorced climatologist who has moved back to England. After attending an interview for a Senior Research Fellowship position at Imperial College, London, he goes into an Italian restaurant in Chelsea and briefly encounters Dr Philip Wang, who accidentally leaves a file behind. Adam takes it to Wang's hotel, only to discover that Wang has been murdered and still has the knife in his body. Before Wang dies, he asks Adam to remove