Those odd clouds, and a handful of rainbow pics
Follows by some odd clouds pic.twitter.com/cWWH5LZLDA
— Basil Seggos (@BasilSeggos) October 23, 2018
Tuesday's late afternoon thunderstorm created some fantastic rainbows around the area. And while you were gawking at the prismatic display, you might have also noticed some odd-looking clouds -- a sort of formation we don't see very often around here.
It caused local weather nerds to have a moment. See this thread over on the National Weather Service Albany Facebook page in which people shared all sorts of photos.
Here's a quick overview of what exactly those were, and a bunch of bonus rainbow pics...
Those were mammatus clouds. And, yep, the root of that name is Latin and, yep, it refers to what it sounds like.
Mammatus are typically associated with towering cumulonimbus clouds. From an Accuweather explainer:
While associated with thunderstorms, mammatus clouds are not necessarily an indicator of severe weather. Mammatus result from the sinking of moist air into dry air. They are in essence upside-down clouds. The sharp boundary of mammatus is much like the sharp boundary of a rising cumulonimbus cloud before an anvil has formed.
Also: They tend to indicate a very bumpy ride for airplanes.
The exact cause of mammatus clouds is unclear. In a 2006 paper in the Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences, researchers described them "an intriguing enigma of atmospheric fluid dynamics and cloud physics." (True of so many things.) Here's a walkthrough of some of the possible mechanisms by a former president of the American Meteorological Society.
DOUBLE RAINBOW
A bunch of rainbow photos people posted yesterday:
???? #NYSCapitol pic.twitter.com/7FVq2nMLWk
— NYS Capitol & Plaza (@NYSCapitolVisit) October 23, 2018
Double rainbows over Albany and ?@NYSCapitolVisit? pic.twitter.com/o94YO3r7Sl
— Heather Groll (@rose41h) October 23, 2018
Doubling down to find the other end of the rainbow. pic.twitter.com/WwiltlEudp
— Heather Groll (@rose41h) October 23, 2018
Somewhere over the rainbow pic.twitter.com/Oc0CatZwwk
— Ashley Hupfl (@AshleyHupfl) October 23, 2018
Wonderful rainbow over #albanyny pic.twitter.com/x7NZauQPcJ
— Andrew Neidhardt (@andrewneidhardt) October 23, 2018
And one of our own. (Because rainbows.) pic.twitter.com/OVxpjjT8su
— All Over Albany (@alloveralbany) October 23, 2018
The end of our ???? has Nipper and a good pint! #nipperthedog #lostandfoundalbany pic.twitter.com/zhZKEZH34h
— Lost & Found Albany (@LostandFoundAlb) October 24, 2018
Captured a great shot of the rainbow yesterday outside our building. ???? pic.twitter.com/8Hx8Lyrtui
— Albany Water Dept (@albanywater) October 24, 2018
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Comments
Mammatus clouds! AOA, how you do keep educating us.
... said chrisck on Oct 24, 2018 at 11:10 AM | link