A vocabulary of landscape — a landscape of words
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anticyclonic gloom
The persistent gray overcast and poor visibility that can settle over a region during a high-pressure system in winter — the opposite of the clear skies high pressure usually brings. Trapped cold air, low sun, and temperature inversions combine to produce days of featureless murk. The name captures the irony: the anticyclone is supposed to mean fair weather, but in winter it can mean the gloomiest skies of all.
Etymology
Greek anti (“against”) + kyklos (“circle, wheel”) + Old English glōm (“twilight, darkness”). An anticyclone is a high-pressure system, named for winds that circulate opposite to a cyclone; the gloom names the winter paradox where fair-weather pressure delivers days of murk instead.