Unusual Clouds: Lenticular, Virga, Mammatus, Kelvin-Helmholtz
One of the enjoyable pastimes of weather addiction is cloud watching. Here are some rare and unsual cloud formations that I have seen—lenticular clouds which look like flying saucers to virga clouds which look like jellyfish to mammatus clouds which look like udders. Have you seen them?
I live in New Mexico, where the sky is such a deep blue that native tradition believed turquoise was small pieces of fallen sky. Part of the joy of being outside is just to gaze into the endless blue and watch the clouds form, shift and dissolve.
Scientists explain that warm air collides with cooler air, causing the moisture in the air to condense from gas to droplets or frozen particles. Science aside, clouds form weird and wonderful shapes and images.
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Here are some relatively rare clouds types I have seen here in New Mexico.
Jellyfish clouds or Virga
Image: Courtesy of NOAA
These clouds are common in the desert, but rare elsewhere. Those jellyfish tendrils are rain that can’t reach the ground. They occur when the ground heats the air so it evaporates the falling rain.
Mammatus clouds
Image: Courtesy of Wikipedia
Anyone who has milked a cow knows how these clouds got their name. They are sagging pouches that form on the base of larger clouds, like the anvil clouds of thunderstorms (where they sometimes indicate a potential tornado.) There are many theories why these puffs of moisture form under the clouds but so far there are no real answers. While an individual lobe usually lasts only 10 minutes, the boiling cluster can linger for hours. It’s an incredible sight.
Kelvin-Helmholtz clouds
Image: Courtesy of Windows to the Universe, Benjamin Foster/UCAR
Named for Lord Kelvin and Hermann von Helmholtz, these weird clouds appear when two layers of air are traveling at different speeds and the faster top layer ripples the moisture of the lower air mass. They are rare and as a sign of unstable air, seldom last longer than 10 to 15 minutes. In the West, they sometimes appear when cool air races up one side of a mountain and glides over the air on the other side.
Lenticular clouds
Lenticular clouds look like flyer saucers! They seem to get their shape because they form downwind of hilly terrain. I’ve seen some amazing examples in the Southwest near the mountains.
Have you seen these beauties?
The most fascinating clouds of all might be noctilucent clouds. These are clouds from outer space, formed by meteor dust. These electric blue clouds are only seen in summer.
Learn more about noctilucent clouds!
James J. Garriss
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Thank you for this! I love the weather and weather watching. My mother talked about mare's tails and a thunder blizzard in NYC back in the late '30's.
I've always been fascinated with what they call the horse tail clouds. Many say they indicate a change in weather after many clear days. I've always watched and sure enough a change comes about.
The weather here in the United States, I think is the most interesting out of all of the places in the world. There's a lot to watch and meteorologists sometimes feel exhausted because there is always just so much to keep an eye on. However, it hurts to see how we are getting so many natural disasters. Its so sad to see what happened in Oklahoma, and can you believe they are having another outbreak of tornadoes? I have donated water & other necessities to the victims in Moore, OK and I find it great that there are people out there who want to help :)
Here is a fact I never knew: The USA has the most tornadoes out of every other country in the world.
Fascinating! ! WOW! I'VE WATCHED CLOUDS SINCE CHILDHOOD, LOVED THE PICTURES.
Thanks!
The Kelvin-Helmholtz clouds look like the "stylized clouds" in Asian art. I see them over the Korean mountains. Didn't believe clouds looked like that in real life until I came here!
I love watching clouds and I always take pictures when I see some rare or beautiful clouds. I even have one when it was lighting, its pretty as well.
I hope you post the pictures and share the fun. This almanac has a great community.
I enjoyed the pictures and hope to see these clouds sometime. In the southeast, the top picture resembles what we call mare's tails. I learned a lot about watching clouds from the writings and paintings of Eric Sloane.
Eric Sloane's Weather Book is a classic and great for young readers. My kids loved it as much as I did.
