The heavens declare the glory of God;
the skies proclaim the work of his hands.
-Psalm 19:1

Do you know that God controls the clouds and makes his lightning flash?
-Job 37:15



Friday, November 14, 2008

MA, MA, MA, MY MAMMATUS!!!!

I don't even know where to begin talking about today... I have been blown away by God's awesomeness! I think I've mentioned several times that my favorite cloud type is mammatus... well, I had only ever seen them locally and in person about 3 or 4 times... prior to today, but I had seen other's captures of those amazing clouds, and I absolutely LOVE them. Yesterday, while I was trying to find a suitable SWF picture of the sky to post, I thought... I sure would love to have some great mammatus pictures to share (seriously, I thought that, with a frustrated edge). You see, they aren't all that common here. I've seen them a few times, fairly randomly and much appreciated them, but I have never had an opportunity to capture how truly beautiful and magnificent they can be... until today. Sometimes, the turnaround time on God's blessings blow me away. This morning, as I was walking outside to wait for Mini-Dew's bus, I caught a glimpse of the edge (therefore hadn't even seen the splendor behind me of a mammatus field. Me, being who I am, ran back into the house for my camera. When I turned around, I was just about knocked off my feet with what I saw, a mass of mammatus clouds filled my sky! I mean, well defined mammatus plastered the sky! Better yet, it was just before sunrise, so God was about to show His amazing glory! (I am tearing up just remembering how wonderful it was...) I have cried all morning, praise God. God is awesome! Without further a-dew, allow me to just share with you, the show (unaltered photos except sizing, all God's work)...How awesome is He?! I sat and watched the sky this morning for half an hour as the colors from the rising sun did their work against the mamma textured sky, all the while feeling God's unhindered, unbroken, unconditional love for me. This sky was a vision of hope, peace and love. What a precious gift from God that it was! The pictures reenforce my memory, but you really had to be there to get the full affect of this amazing spiritual encounter.

4:45PM Update: James Spann posted my pics!! Check it out!! He also sent me an email telling me they are "really good"! :O) Thanks, Mike!

Now... I am going to look at things a little more scientifically and tell you what it means weather-wise...

Mammatus (also known as mammatocumulus, meaning "bumpy clouds") is a meteorological term applied to a cellular pattern of pouches hanging underneath the base of a cloud. The name "mammatus" is derived from the Latin mamma (breast), due to the resemblance between the shape of these clouds and human female breasts.

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. When occurring in cumulonimbus, mammatus are often indicative of a particularly strong storm or maybe even a tornadic storm. These tend to form more often during warm months and over the midwest and eastern portions of the United States (it's in the 70's today).

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. A lobe can last an average of 10 minutes, but a whole cluster of mamma can range from 15 minutes to a few hours (ours lasted at least 2 hours this morning!!!). Their composition is usually mostly ice, but can be a mixture of ice and liquid water or almost entirely liquid water.
~source
Check out the link there for lots of hypothesized formation mechanisms.

Here's the kicker... it's been months since we have seen a slight risk, and lo and behold... SLIGHT RISK, right slap dab on top of me! With this wording...
SOUTHERN/CENTRAL GA TODAY... MODEL FORECAST SOUNDINGS SUGGEST THAT DEEP LAYER VERTICAL SHEAR IS FAVORABLE FOR SUPERCELLS... WITH SUFFICIENT LOW LEVEL SHEAR FOR ISOLATED TORNADOES ALONG PRE-EXISTING BOUNDARIES THIS AFTERNOON.
I've got a feeling, today is the day. If we get a break in the stratus cloud deck that has (since the mammatus) moved in, which would allow for some daytime heating to break through and destabilize things, it might be showtime.

Aside from all that... I have been asked to publish for the Examiner, as a paid author. I am the official Georgia Weather Examiner. Check me out at this link. Go me! please check out my link!

4:30PM Update from AL Mike... This just in from Spann...
The air is rather unstable over South Alabama and the southern two-thirds of Georgia; surface based CAPE values are near 2,500 j/kg (great googaly moogaly!!!)near the Alabama/Florida border around Geneva with surface temperatures hovering around 80 degrees. Strong to severe thunderstorms are possible across the region during the next 6 to 8 hours, and SPC indicates they might pull the trigger on a severe thunderstorm watch for much of Central and South Georgia.
Stay tuned!
~Dewdrop

21 comments:

  1. My goodness those certainly are unusual and beautiful... Don't think I've ever seen such a giant display... I'll have to remember that word, mammatus...

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  2. These cloud photos are really impressive. Bravo!

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  3. WOW!
    Amazing shots once again!

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  4. Absolutely incredible Dew. I'm so glad you were up to catch the show. God is an artist. Please email me the large version of a few of those so I can print them and hang them up in my home office.

    SCM

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  5. Wow! Those are some amazing clouds. Beautiful pictures!

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  6. stuning shots, true treasure:)

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  7. Wow, never see saw clouds before over here. Looked so amazing. Have a nice weekend.

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  8. absolutely wonderfilled awesomeness of God's neverending glory!
    it was a yellow dreary lightening and thunder and 6 inches of rain filled day here!
    Awesome Sky watch too...
    hugs Laura
    HOW far are you from LYONS?

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  9. Great clouds and great shots!

    Jason

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  10. wow! i love it! so dramatic! :)

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  11. James Spann was right; these are really GOOD photos. Wonderful photos, Dew, of a beautiful example of God's handiwork.

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  12. Amazing shots. I've seen mammatus clouds only once (so far) back when I was living in Alberta. They were stunning.

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  13. A truly blessed event, I have never seen such a beautiful sky! I hope to though one day. Have a great weekend!

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  14. Absolutely glorious! What a beautiful sky to have seen.

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  15. Congrats! Good luck with your writing. Isn't it great to see your by line?

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  16. Very nice work. Mother Nature was posing for you. Maybe we should refer to her as "Yo Mamma."

    Tonie Toney

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  17. Again, it appears that my drug induced state caused me to neglect my wonderful guests...

    Thank you so much for all of your kind words regarding my wonderful and fulfilling God-sent gift of Mammatus clouds. His timing is truly perfect. They are an incredibly awesome sky feature that has for a long while been my favorite, and that was prior to my first-hand experience with them. God truly is an amazing artist, as Mikey said!

    Gretchen, it is quite thrilling...

    Tonie, Yo mamma sounds very appropriate. Hope you're recovering well.

    Cool, indeed. Sweet blessing.

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Dew comment, please...