Mammatus ? clouds

[kinetic]

I saw these this morning, they were very striking from the hill behind me.
I've made a panorama and tried to duplicate the appearance to my eye.

Steve

[Dennis]

Nice shot Steve. They look similar to the cloud belts on the gas giants – amazing texture and structures.

Cheers

Dennis

[Octane]

Wow, beautiful!

H

[jjjnettie]

Gorgeous cloudage Steve. Surreal!

[Jeffkop]

WOW ... how good is that ... makes me feel like Im in an ocean and looking up at the waters surface. You HAD to photo that. I think your pano has worked a treat !!!

[iceman]

Wow, I don't think they're mammatus but they're beautiful.

I love the repeated dust motes ;)

[Paul Haese]

Not Mammatus Steve. Those are lenticular I think. Mammatus have a different look.

We often get lenticular clouds here. Especially when the wind comes directly from the west. Certainly someone here with more storm chasing experience would be able to tell you more about them. Lenticular are formed from air current direction and sliding up an over a range of hills or mountains. Well that is how I understand it to be.

Mammatus on the other hand are usually present at the end of a lighting storm. No one is sure why they form, but that is the time to see them. I have been waiting to see some when the sun is setting. That would be spectacular.

[renormalised]

Nice clouds, Steve, but they're not mammatus. Mammatus look more like bunches of grapes hanging off the bottom of large storm cells. I've attached a piccie of mammatus to show you what they look like.

Here's the wiki article on them....http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mammatus_cloud

I've seen them on a number of occasions up here during the wet season. Can look quite spectacular and rather eerie, especially when they have that iridescent look about them.

The cloud you have (Undulatus asperatus) there looks like a series of waves that have been setup by gravity waves at the base of the cloud. Within the layers you have two or more counter flowing wind currents which generate a set of standing waves as well as microscale turbulent flow. Your clouds are a little more smooth and laminar than the ones in the piccie I've attached.