List of cloud types

The list of cloud types is a summarisation of the modern system of cloud classification according to their height, forming mechanism and other characteristics that have been adopted universally. In the troposphere, there are ten basic genus types with Latin names derived from five physical forms that are cross-classified into étages defined by altitude range. Most genera are divided into species and varieties, also with Latin names. The essentials of the modern nomenclature system for tropospheric clouds were proposed by Luke Howard, a British manufacturing chemist and an amateur meteorologist with broad interests in science, in an 1802 presentation to the Askesian Society. Since 1890, clouds have been classified and illustrated in cloud atlases. Mesospheric and stratospheric clouds have their own classifications of types and subtypes using mostly alpha-numeric nomenclature.