Cloud Formation Described as “Passive Aggressive”
A cloud formation that positioned itself over the Helderberg mountain on Thursday and remained there for the better part of the day was characterized independently and without collusion by three separate residents, one meteorology enthusiast and a woman waiting for a table outside a coffee shop in Somerset West as “passive aggressive,” a descriptor that all five arrived at through their own observation and which, upon reflection, none of them could improve on.
The cloud did not rain. It also did not clear. It sat at exactly the altitude required to obscure the upper reaches of the mountain — that part of the view that is, if you live in Somerset West, much of the point — while leaving the lower slopes visible in a way that made the obscuring feel deliberate. It provided insufficient shade to be welcome on a warm day and insufficient presence to justify not going outside. It was, in the fullest sense, unhelpful.
“If it was going to rain it should have rained,” said one resident. “If it wasn’t going to rain it should have cleared. Just sitting there suggesting things and not following through is not weather. That’s a personality type.”
Meteorologists have classified the formation as a standard orographic stratus cloud, a naturally occurring phenomenon with no emotional content whatsoever. They are technically correct and also somewhat missing the point.