Mammatus Clouds at Sunset

A few days ago we were fortunate enough to observe a somewhat unusual cloud formation known as mammatus clouds.

We first became aware of them via an entry on the astro photo of the day site a while back, and were quite happy to see them for ourselves.

Looking like giant cloud “drops” in the sky, these unusually shaped clouds are usually formed during periods of severe weather. They are often mistakenly believed to indicate upcoming stormy weather, but in reality are most often formed after the most intense part of a storm.

Click the image above to see more of the images taken from our back yard, and here’s a link to more photos of mammatus clouds.