And speaking of clouds;
These are mammatus clouds taken at sunset from the deck of my old apartment. The San Francisco Bay Area is not known for powerful thunderstorms in the same way as the Great Plains, or for the monsoons of the Southwest. However, on some rare occasions, we get what I call “Hurricane Spawn”, or the left-over remains of hurricanes off the west coast of Mexico.
Mammatus clouds are like a bubbling cauldron turned upside down, usually appearing at the end of a strong thunderstorm. I’ve heard it called an outpouring of the warm air sinking back towards the ground.
Although my cloud photos are pretty, you should really see these stunning examples of Mammatus Clouds taken back in 2004. (Part of the collection at the High Plains Regional Climate Center at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln.)
Thanks to photographer Michael Gordon for bringing this link to my attention.
