I was admiring TwoPynts' recent LWITG cloud upload, as well as the weather pictures in ia_strmchsr's gallery...so, for them and other weather followers here at Renderosity, are two (of many) shots that I took of this cloud event last month. They are images of "mammatus" cloud formations. These clouds are relatively rare, spectacular...and scary at the same time. Sorry for the small format, but I wanted to show two shots with one upload. From wikipedia...http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mammatus "Mammatus are most often associated with the anvil cloud that extends from a cumulonimbus, but may also be found under altocumulus, altostratus, stratocumulus, and cirrus clouds, as well as contrails and volcanic ash clouds. In the United States, sky gazers may be most familiar with the very distinct and more common cumulonimbus mammatus. When occurring in cumulonimbus, mammatus are often indicative of a particularly strong storm. These tend to form more often during warm months and over the midwest and eastern portions of the United States, and more infrequently over the west and southwest. Due to the intensely sheared environment in which mammatus form, aviators are strongly cautioned to avoid cumulonimbus with mammatus. Mammatus may appear as smooth, ragged or lumpy lobes and may be opaque or semitransparent. Because mammatus occur as a grouping of lobes, the way they clump together can vary from an isolated cluster to a field of mamma that spread over hundreds of kilometers to being organized along a line, and may be composed of unequal- or similarly-sized lobes. The individual mammatus lobe average diameters of 1-3 km and lengths on average of 0.5 km. A lobe can last an average of 10 minutes, but a whole cluster of mamma can range from 15 minutes to a few hours. Their composition is usually mostly ice, but can be a mixture of ice and liquid water or almost entirely liquid water" Nikon D300 July 9th, 2008 Many Thanks for your views and comments on my last upload..."It was a dark and stormy night...Part 1" ENJOY!