the.com/stratus
the sky's gray blanket that hangs so low it's basically fog with commitment issues.
means A low, flat, featureless layer of gray cloud that spreads across the sky like a sheet, often bringing drizzle or overcast gloom.
from Straight from the Latin stratus, meaning 'spread out' or 'layered' — the past participle of sternere, 'to spread.' The same root that flattens out into 'stratum,' 'street' (a paved, spread-out way), and 'prostrate.' It entered the meteorologist's vocabulary in the early 19th century, when Luke Howard gave the clouds their now-standard Latin names — cumulus for the heaped ones, cirrus for the wispy, and stratus for the ones that simply lie down flat across the heavens.
- altitude
- forms below 6,500 feet, lowest cloud type
- fog kinship
- stratus touching the ground is literally fog
- drizzle dealer
- produces drizzle, not dramatic downpours
- latin root
- means spread or layered out flat
- mood killer
- blocks sun for hours, grayness with no rush
stratus clouds san francisco — fog layer covering the bay area on ~200 days per year, created by cold pacific water meeting warm air
stratus over london — persistent low cloud deck that historically prompted the term 'london fog' in the 19th-20th centuries
marine layer california coast — stratus blanket extending 300+ miles offshore during summer months from upwelling cold currents