Well, I'm no expert, but I've seen several examples of these. They are the sign of a very unstable atmosphere and usually around the underside of the spreading anvil of a supercell-type of storm.
Mammatus clouds (like the thunderstorms that normally spawn them) go through a certain life cycle of growth, maturity, and death so their appearance can change, sometimes on a minute-by-minute basis. How they appear is also affected by the light. This time lapse on YouTube shows you where the mammatus is in relation to the main storm itself. (In this video, the whole storm with associated mammatus is moving away from the camera). But notice that the definition of the mammatus clouds starts to "fall apart" at the end. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3gluKBk9v4 In my opinion, David's photos are definitely mammatus but just not densely packed and possibly past the mature stage. Good captures, David! They are a treat no matter how many times you get to see them. The wildest mammatus that I have ever seen was on a chase with my son-in-law. We were late leaving for "the show" and so the storms were already in full bloom and we were still 60 miles away from the base. We are headed straight south on the highway here, and were treated to an intense display of mammatus on the periphery of the supercell: http://www.flickr.com/photos/10817874@N00/251051935/i By the time we got to Norton, KS (the storm's base) it was in the process of splitting into two. We chose the right-moving cell, but it became outflow dominant so our only chance for a decent picture was to get out in front of it for a view of the gust front that it would likely be producing. That's what led to this photo (a past PESO) http://www.flickr.com/photos/22413777@N00/4722534814/ Darren On Wed, Dec 18, 2013 at 8:42 AM, Rick Womer <[email protected]> wrote: > Not sure those are cumulonimbus mammatus from these pix, Dave. When I've > seen them, the bumps have been side-by-side on the bottom of a towering > thunderstorm. > > We need Darren's expert opinion here. > > Rick > > On Dec 18, 2013, at 04:08 , David Mann wrote: > >> We were warned about possible thunderstorms and hail which were supposed to >> hit during the afternoon today. We actually had fine weather all day, but >> as I was sitting down to eat my dinner I looked out the window and saw some >> mammatus cloud. That has been on my list of things I want to see so I >> grabbed the camera and went outside. >> >> Only trouble is I have a difficult foreground so I had to get what I could. >> I was wishing I was up on the hill. But the lighting wasn't too bad so I'm >> quite happy. >> >> http://gallery.multi.net.nz/gallery/49/#geso >> >> I seemed to be standing in a clear patch; the view in the opposite direction >> (south, where it was coming from) was quite menacing. I thought we were >> going to be hit big-time but it turned out to be nothing here. From what I >> can see on the weather radar most of the action occurred out at sea. >> >> Cheers, >> Dave >> >> >> -- >> PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List >> [email protected] >> http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net >> to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and >> follow the directions. > > > -- > PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List > [email protected] > http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net > to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow > the directions. -- I don't have a problem with idiots. I have a problem with the fact that they have an internet connection. -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
