View Full Version : I've forgotten my clouds...
Airborne Aircrew
3rd Jul 2011, 01:10
.., but these were over my house this evening... It was after an active front with heavy rains and some light thunder passed through but there was still some activity. All of a sudden the sky turned into all these "cotton balls"...
What do we call these clouds - because I'm stumped...
http://www.hqrafregiment.net/images/cotton%20ball%20clouds.jpg
bonajet
3rd Jul 2011, 01:17
Cumulus mammatus?
Alister101
3rd Jul 2011, 01:17
Mammatus clouds?
Airborne Aircrew
3rd Jul 2011, 01:34
Brilliant... Thanks... We had just had a severe storm warning, (something we have quite often here), and have had some magic, (read: horrendous if you don't like storms), storms in the past and we have never seen these clouds. We've even had tornadoes 20-30 miles north and seen nothing like this.
Tonight we had a very mild storm pass by despite the warnings yet we got these clouds... It has subsequently turned green, (usually a very bad sign), and now it has turned completely grey/orange but there is no real activity and looking at the radar we are very much on the back end of a line of T'storms...
It's so orange right now I took more pictures... Weirdest cloud formations I ever saw...
http://www.hqrafregiment.net/images/orange.jpg
ISTR that wherever there are Cu-nim clouds with vigorous up currents there will be corresponding areas of down current which may produce the Mammatus type cloud.
For real anoraks may I point out
The Cloud Appreciation Society (http://cloudappreciationsociety.org/gallery/).
Check out the Kelvin Helmholz cloud
http://cloudappreciationsociety.org/gallery/images/20091229102851_p1000861.jpg
thunderbird7
3rd Jul 2011, 22:39
..and if you join the society, you get a certificate and a book, like my 9yo son has. He's more use than the weather radar on a 400 ;-)
Flash2001
4th Jul 2011, 00:07
Also called Cumulo Cumulus for the politically correct. TAKE SHELTER!
After an excellent landing etc...
BarbiesBoyfriend
4th Jul 2011, 09:44
The thimg to remember about 'mammatus' is that where there's mammatus, there's turbulence.
In fact, I've heard it called 'turbulence cloud' before.
There's not many absolutes in aviation , but it's always bumpy in these suckers!