Elise Brand, age 10, of Brownsville, Texas, for her question:

What is a mackerel sky?

A mackerel is a handsome, gray blue fish all covered with glassy scales that shine like flat flakes of silvery snow. Sometimes the sky wears a huge scarf of small, flat,;flaky clouds against a background of blue or silvery gray. Old timers called it a mackerel sky because it reminded them of the neat, silvery scales on the handsome fish. The so called mackerel sky also might remind you of a flock of lazy white heavenly sheep. But unless the flaky clouds are arranged in lines or waves like neat, scary patterns, they do not form a true mackerel sky.

The weatherman has his own terms for the different cloud patterns and formations His cumulus clouds are those fluffy white pompoms that drift over the summer sky. He tacks nimbus onto the names of gloomy rainclouds. A cumulonimbus is a thunderhead. He adds also to the names of high flying clouds. The weatherman's name for the mackerel sky is altocumulus. Lazy white cumulus clouds usually float a mile or two above the ground. The small, white altocumulus clouds Of a mackerel sky may be floating as high as four miles above our heads.