Interesting Clouds

[rogerg]

Out in the far eastern wheatbelt for the last few days, I came across these interesting cloud formations one afternoon. I'm not sure what their correct name is.

They were all flat on the top - same altitude, but bubbling down underneath. Several were connical shaped, this one was much more conical (almost a perfect triangle) before I eventually stopped the car to take a photo of it (by which time the bottom/centre tip had gone).

It was humid and semi-stormy, like a storm was building up but then disapated just after sunset.

During the day there were several mini tornado's that I saw taking dust up quite some distance. This makes me wonder if these connical clouds were at all related.

There was also a lot of Virga clouds around.

I can't find them in my cloud books.

Roger.

[Jarrod]

they're beautiful. :thumbsup:

I'd love to get into cloud photography, but I don't think my camera is really up to scratch.

great image,

Jarrod.

[RB]

I like how you've composed the frame and lovely colours too.

:thumbsup:

[Astroman]

No such thing as Mini Tornadoes. It either is a tornado or it isn't, no in between... :)

Were the vortices associated with a parent cloud? ie. was there a noticable funnel coming from the clouds or were the vortices you refer to, Dust Devils, with no parent cloud and formed from Thermals?

If the vortices were associated with a parent cloud, my guess is it would be a land spout (A tornado not formed by a Thunderstorm) If there was no cloud then it would be a Dust Devil (willie-willie)

I think the cloud formation is Strato-Cumulus, but dont quote me on that, not a cloud formation fan, just prefer Cb :)

As I guessed, my initial thought was wrong LOL...

My mate says they are a mixture of Alto-Cumulus and Cumulus clouds, the m iddle ones are Cumulus or Cu and the ones around it are Ac or Alto Cumulus. Most likely an Inversion around 12,000ft he says. The Cu is Glaciated and weakening.

[iceman]

Beautiful image, Roger. Nicely composed and nice features.

[SkySearcher]

Beautiful Shot.

I really like the composition. The way the little bush seems to opose the clouds is great.

[rogerg]

The ones I saw during the day were dust devils I suppose you'd say - but one of the mextended to quite a height - impossible to judge, but I saw it from about 5km away while driving along where it looked very tall, then up closer it wouldn't have fitted in my 17mm lens at all.


I'm not sure about the afternoon ones - the big cloud ones. I never saw anything coming down from these pointy inverted clouds so doubt they would have formed in to vortices at all, but they looked like they could :)


Interesting... I'll do some searching and see what Strato-Cumulus is...



Cool.. thanks for all the info :)