A cloud dream comes true.

Byline: Susan Palmer The Register-Guard

The Cloudman's on Cloud Nine.

John Day - a McMinnville resident and meteorologist whose Web site is www.Cloudman.com - saw a longtime wish fulfilled when the U.S. Postal Service issued a postage stamp series of spectacular cloud photographs this month titled Cloudscapes.

"I guess I feel, at long last, hurray!" said Day, who at 91 worried that he might not live to see the day the stamps were actually released.

But Day had one other reason to celebrate. One of his cloud photographs is part of the series that depicts the sky in all its glory, from colorful sunsets to gossamer-thin cloud wisps against a stunning blue backdrop.

Clouds are made up of tiny droplets of water - either frozen or liquid - so small that gravity has little effect on them. Contrary to popular belief, clouds aren't water vapor, which is invisible.

Day has been teaching physics and meteorology at Linfield College since 1958. He has written several books on the weather, including two Peterson's field guides. But his avocation - cloud photography - has led to publication of cloud books and even a sky-watcher cloud chart, produced in conjunction with another sky lover, Jack Borden, whose Web site is www.forspaciousskies.com.

"He and I both have a commitment to trying to help persuade people to look up and see the clouds," Day said. "Most people are not aware of the sky and go around with their heads down."

The stamps will give heads-down folk compelling images that may just coax them to look up. They depict 15 different types of clouds, from the frightening cumulonimbus with a tornado whirling beneath to the choppy cirrus clouds that often precede a storm.

Day's picture, shot about 15 years ago, shows the light, fluffy clouds known as cumulus humilis drifting over a bucolic field and a big red barn north of McMinnville.

Day had spied the field and barn as a good place for taking pictures.

"When good clouds would show up, I would dash out to the Maulding farm," he said.

His photograph - and the new stamp - is all that's left of that small slice of Americana. The field has become a mobile home lot, and a horse rancher deconstructed the old barn and rebuilt it in a new location.

The Postal Service gets about 50,000 requests a year from citizens who want a particular person or event depicted on stamps, agency spokesman Mark Saunders said. Between 25 and 30 new stamps come out in any given year.

Several requests over the years for cloud stamps finally convinced the citizen advisory board that considers stamp requests to commission the new series, he said.

The agency prints anywhere from 70 million to 100 million stamps in any given series. Of course, some stamps prove more popular than others, Saunders said. The hands-down bestseller: Elvis Presley stamps, which sold 512 million.

The Postal Service expects the cloud series to be more popular than the average stamp and has printed 125 million of them, Saunders said.

The stamps have been issued in collaboration with the Weather Channel, the American Meteorological Society and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, all of which will be using them as an educational tool this month, which is also National Stamp Collecting month, Saunders said.

The stamps themselves are educational, too, with information about each of the cloud types on the panel behind the stamp.

And that's just the kind of thing likely to interest stamp collectors.

It's not just the images on the stamps that excite philatelists, said Vern Kilpatrick, a member of the Eugene Greater Stamp Society.

Stamps open a small window onto intriguing other worlds, said Kilpatrick, who has been collecting stamps for decades.

Stamps depict interesting people, fascinating historic events and intriguing, faraway places.

"It's the curiosity factor. What is it telling you?" he said.

Folks who want to use the cloud stamps as a springboard to begin collecting can buy a Cloudscapes stamp collecting scrapbook at the Postal Service Web site. And newcomers are welcome at the Greater Eugene Stamp Society, which meets twice a month.

But be warned: It's a hobby that keeps some people fascinated for years.

"The curiosity continues because there's always a stamp in the album that you don't have," Kilpatrick said.

MORE ON STAMPS

Online: See the new stamps and purchase the scrapbook at www.usps.com/shop; Cloudscape postcards also available

Meet philatelists: The Greater Eugene Stamp Society meets on the second and fourth Wednesday of every month at 7:30 p.m. at the offices of Northwest Natural Gas, 790 Goodpasture Island Road

CAPTION(S):

A new stamp series includes clouds shot by John Day (second from left).