Overcast at night

October 16th was cool and clear until night when a blanket of clouds covered the sky in advance of a weather change. These altostratus clouds covered the sky in diagonal undulations with lower clouds reflecting back the ambient light at about 9:30 pm in the eastern sky.


Altostratus clouds are gray or blue-gray middle-level clouds composed of ice crystals and water droplets. These clouds usually cover the entire sky. Altostratus clouds often form ahead of storms that will produce continuous precipitation.


Here's an excerpt from Goethe's poem entitled "Stratus":


Then the mist raises itself upon the mountain,
Broadly piling up streak on streak (of cloud), so that far and wide
The middle air is wrapped in gloom, equally favourable
Either to its falling as rain or rising airily.