Asperitas is characterized by localized waves in the cloud base, either smooth or dappled with smaller features, sometimes descending into sharp points as if viewing a roughened sea surface from below.

[5]On June 20, 2006, Jane Wiggins took a picture of asperitas clouds from the window of a downtown office building in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, United States.

NASA posted the photo as the Astronomy Picture of the Day, which shows great detail, partly because sunlight illuminates the undulating clouds from the side.

[10] The 2017 edition of the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO)'s International Cloud Atlas included asperitas as a supplementary feature.

[5] Pretor-Pinney gave an invited presentation at the WMO in Geneva for the launch of the revised Cloud Atlas on World Meteorological Day 2017.