Although the middle of August has had a few very windy days, during the last few weeks storm clouds have been near the village. As often seems to be the case, when we need the rain most, it just passes us by and we still have not made up for the long dry spell during much of the Summer.
But, the storm clouds in our district have produced some dramatic weather formations which would probably be appreciated by members of the Cloud Appreciation Society. Yes, there is such a thing.
However, the cloud pictured just north of Aylsham developed a shelf cloud and a ‘whale’s mouth’ at the bottom, often a feature of cumulonimbus storms, which went on to unleash a flood on Sheringham.
The undersides of storm clouds can be very unstable and they produce complex patterns of updraughts and downdraughts of warm, cold and wet air. Such a formation was seen over Tuttington recently producing small blebs of cloud called mammatus clouds.
If this has whetted your appetite for storm clouds and you want to see something really scary that you definitely would not want to walk under, head on over to the Cloud Appreciation Society website and have a look at this…