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Mammatus Clouds Over Olympic Valley

Explanation: What's happened to these clouds? Normal cloud bottoms are flat because moist warm air that rises and cools will condense into water droplets at a very specific temperature, which usually corresponds to a very specific height. After water droplets form that air becomes an opaque cloud. Under some conditions, however, cloud pockets can develop that contain large droplets of water or ice that fall into clear air as they evaporate. Such pockets may occur in turbulent air near a thunderstorm, being seen near the top of an anvil cloud, for example. Resulting mammatus clouds can appear especially dramatic if sunlit from the side. These mammatus clouds were photographed last August over Olympic Valley, California, USA.

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What has this to do with Astronomy? 'Earth Science Picture of the Day'; perhaps, not Astronomy.

Cliff wrote:What has this to do with Astronomy? 'Earth Science Picture of the Day'; perhaps, not Astronomy.

Be careful Cliff--Asking questions like this will get you banned

skippy, being rude will get someone banned; so will discussing moderator actions on the board. Please read the rules; thanks.

Cliff, the editors have a (deliberately) wide view of astronomy, as understanding systems on earth help us to understand systems on other planets. Fortunately, if you don't like today's APOD, or even if you do, you can browse through pictures recently submitted to APOD here, or look at images from instruments such as WISE here or HiRISE here, or check out Saturn's very cool neighborhood here.

Being raised in Oklahoma I was taught that when you saw these clouds, hail was on the way.

Isn't the term "mammatus" clouds derived from certain female glands which they resemble? I imagine a highly educated and serious scientist pondering a descriptive term for the feature saying, far out....sky boobs. If the clouds appeared over the Grand Tetons, it would probably cause a rip in space/time.

I like the picture; really neat. I think an Earth picture every now and than is very much a part of APOD.

Plus, keeping abreast of weather conditions will allow for better astronomic viewing times

BMAONE23 wrote:
Plus, keeping abreast of weather conditions will allow for better astronomic viewing times

• I hear ya!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_mammalian_auditory_ossicles wrote:

A typical mammalian middle ear.

<<Living mammal species can be identified by the presence in females of mammary glands which produce milk. Other features are required when classifying fossils, since mammary glands and other soft-tissue features are not visible in fossils. Paleontologists therefore use a distinguishing feature that is shared by all living mammals (including monotremes), but is not present in any of the early Triassic therapsids ("mammal-like reptiles"): mammals use two bones for hearing that all other amniotes use for eating. The earliest amniotes had a jaw joint composed of the articular (a small bone at the back of the lower jaw) and the quadrate (a small bone at the back of the upper jaw). All non-mammalian amniotes use this system including lizards, crocodilians, dinosaurs (and their descendants the birds) and therapsids; so the only ossicle in their middle ears is the stapes. But mammals have a different jaw joint, composed only of the dentary (the lower jaw bone which carries the teeth) and the squamosal (another small skull bone). And in mammals the quadrate and articular bones have become the incus and malleus bones in the middle ear.>>