Walking home from Tottenham Hale tube station this afternoon, I spotted these incredible alien cloud shapes - here they are above Broad Lane. Giant blobs that looked like they were the outer layer of some vast canopy...back home, I turned to my trusty Cloudspotter's Guide (a wonderful book, if you haven't got it). And here they are: mamma clouds, named after the Latin for, yep, breasts. 'At their most dramatic, they look like a field of smooth, globular udders,' says Gavin Pretor-Pinney. They form under all sorts of clouds, but they're biggest and best under Cumulonimbus, storm clouds. Given today's stair-rod rain, that sounds about right.
Friday 24 July 2009
Udderly amazing
Walking home from Tottenham Hale tube station this afternoon, I spotted these incredible alien cloud shapes - here they are above Broad Lane. Giant blobs that looked like they were the outer layer of some vast canopy...back home, I turned to my trusty Cloudspotter's Guide (a wonderful book, if you haven't got it). And here they are: mamma clouds, named after the Latin for, yep, breasts. 'At their most dramatic, they look like a field of smooth, globular udders,' says Gavin Pretor-Pinney. They form under all sorts of clouds, but they're biggest and best under Cumulonimbus, storm clouds. Given today's stair-rod rain, that sounds about right.
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2 comments:
They're amazing. I have to admit I rather love the dramatic skies and the strange light - which makes colours appear so intense - we get with this stormy summer weather. When I did jury duty, I got the bus to Wood Green every day and going past the house in Tottenham with the blue plaque which read 'Luke Howard, Namer of Clouds' was pretty much was the high point of my day. I think 'Namer of Clouds' is about the most romantic-sounding job title ever.
Wow, that is an amazing picture. Something quite eerie about it too.
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