THE WEIRD CLOUD ATLAS - Science Photo Library

THE WEIRD CLOUD ATLAS 

It’s been a summer of clouds. Mainly dull and grey. 

But nature also produces clouds in all shapes, sizes 

and colours. Some can fool the unwary into thinking 

they’re having a UFO experience; others send 

folks rushing into storm shelters. Out of all the weird 

clouds in this set, though, the last one you’d want 

to see is the one created by humans: the distinctive 

cloud produced by an H-bomb.

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Lenticular clouds – these spectacular clouds, so 

popular with UFO believers, are usually formed 

when air passes over mountain tops. Their strange 

stacked disc-like appearance gives them an eerie 

alien mothership look. 

Shelf clouds – seen from the ground, shelf clouds 

appear as low, wedge shaped clouds and are usually 

associated with severe thunderstorms.


Cumulonimbus seen from above – astronauts 

aboard the International Space Station snapped 

this cumulonimbus cloud. These clouds rise vertically 

until they hit a natural barrier, known as the 

tropopause, and flatten out, as seen in this image. 

Cumulonimbus usually herald the onset of a 

severe storm. 

Votices – The physics of waves determines how 

some clouds behave. These clouds look like they 

have had a hole punched through them. In fact 

they are naturally occurring vortices crafted by 

wind patterns on the clouds.


Noctilucent clouds are crystals of ice hanging 

around 80 kilometres high in the atmosphere that 

catch the light of the sun long after it has set on 

the horizon. Once a rare sight, these ‘night clouds’ 

are on the increase, possibly a result of climate 

change. 

Supercells – these thunderstorms rotate with immense 

energy, causing a strong updraft and severe 

weather including tornadoes, hail, heavy rain, 

lightning and heavy winds. The huge, dark clouds 

produced by supercells look magnificent.


Gravity Clouds – these distinctive ripple-like clouds 

usually form over the ocean as buoyancy pushes 

air up and gravity pulls it back down causing a 

wave like effect. 

Mammatus clouds derive their name from the 

latin for mammary glands due to lobed hanging 

shape formed by these clouds. They can produce 

some dramatic and unusual patterns on the sky 

and are also associated with severe storms.


Jet stream cirrus clouds – the jet stream is that fast 

moving current of air that dictates how sunny or 

how wet our UK summers are. 

Pileus clouds are small clouds that form on top of a bigger 

cloud. In this photo, a pileus cloud (centre) has formed 

above a cloud of volcanic ash from the Sarychev volcano. The 

snap was taken by astronauts aboard the International Space 

Station.Note too the ring of non-cloudy air surrounding the 

volcano which is thought to have been caused by the eruption.


Sonic Boom Cloud 

This F/A-10 Hornet fighter jet is not flying through 

a cloud, instead, it created the cloud by accelerating 

towards the speed of sound (768mph). It is 

thought that the drop in air pressure around the 

plane when it travels so far causes moist air to condense 

and form water droplets. 

Actinoform Clouds 

Only visible from space, these large cloud formations 

form ray like patterns over hundreds of 

kilometres. They are associated with drizzle and 

gloomy weather.

Atomic cloud – When at atomic weapon is detonated, the chain reaction 

caused by nuclear reaction heats the ground to an extremely 

high temperature and causes hot air and debris to rise into a 

column. Cooler air gets sucked in to the column creating an inward 

spiralling vortex (the mushroom cap) until it falls back down again, 

raining radioactive debris. 

Science Photo Library - Features

THE WEIRD CLOUD ATLAS - Science Photo Library

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