Luke Howard (The Cloud Expert)

            Last Friday I had the privilege to give a presentation to my class about Luke Howard who was born on November 28th, 1772 in London, England.  During the presentation I mainly focused on how Luke Howard followed in his father's footsteps by becoming a businessman and opening a firm for manufacturing pharmaceutical  chemicals, but ended up becoming a meteorologist. Even though he had no intentions on becoming a meteorologist  at first, he still showed a great interest in meteorology and clouds. Howard's obsession with clouds led to him writing and essay on the modification of clouds. In the essay Howard presents the first practical classification clouds which means he gave the clouds three name types that included the cirrus cloud, the cumulus cloud, and the stratus cloud. Without Luke Howard's  interest and hard work in studying clouds, we would not know how to identify them or what makes them different from one another. I'm glad that I had the opportunity to learn and teach about Luke Howard and his contribution to science and especially meteorology.  Before giving this presentation I had no clue how clouds got their names and how they were different.  Presenting this project allowed me to learn how different parts of the atmosphere are formed.