#2233 "April Fools Stratocumulus"

The late afternoon sky of stratocumulus was very interesting on April Fools Day. The sea of stratocumulus were embedded in a northwesterly flow behind the lion of the March storm and ahead of the next system. The crepuscular rays crafted blocks of light and dark in the sides of those clouds. I found the patterns interesting. Some patches of blue sky poked through the holes in the deck of clouds. The ice still filled the western basin of Singleton Lake. There were some Langmuir Streaks in the open water of the east basin.

April Fools' Day probably dates back to 1582 when France switched from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar of Pope Gregory XIII as decided by the Council of Trent in 1563. Aloysus Lilius was the Italian scientist who invented the calendar but the Pope takes all of the credit and gives the invention his name. Lilius' ingenious method for syncing the calendar with the seasons is still off by 26 seconds even using Leap years that add a February 29th for years divisible by 4 or 100. By the year 4909 the Gregorian calendar will be a full day ahead of the solar year. Wait for that!

The Julian calendar was implemented by Julius Caesar in 46 B.C. However the Roman emperor's system that was surely not invented by Julius himself miscalculated the length of the solar year by 11 minutes. Over time the calendar must become unsynchronized with the seasons if only by 11 minutes with each passing year. This troubled Pope Gregory since it meant that Easter which was traditionally observed on March 21 fell further and further away from the spring equinox with each passing year.

Back in the late 1500's people were slow to get news of the switch to the Gregorian calendar. Many Europeans continued to celebrate the start of the new year like the Romans during the last week of March through to April 1. These out of date, uninformed and unfortunate souls became the target of pranks. The hoaxes included having paper fish stuck to their backs and were referred to as "poisson d'avril" or April fish. The April foolish paper fish symbolized a gullible person who was easy to catch like a fish.

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