Cool Clouds

I took this cloud pciture after stepping out of a shop this afternoon. It was just too cool to not put on the blog.

"Known as mammatus clouds, these strange, pouchy formations often occur in association with a thunderstorm. They have been seen in lots of places, including the midwestern United States.
“They are some seriously weird looking clouds,” said cloud physicist Patrick Chuang.
But scientists do have some theories about mammutus clouds. Another cloud physicist, Daniel Breed of the National Center for Atmospheric Research, says buoyancy and convection of air is the key.
“They’re kind of like upside-down convection,” Breed said.
Convection is like a buoyant bubble, he said. In mammutus clouds, evaporation causes pockets of negative buoyancy as it cools the air inside the cloud. This makes the clouds puff downward instead of up like cumulus clouds, and they end up being like upside-down bubbles." (source:wired)

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