A Swath of Mammatus Clouds

Yesterday evening, a fast-moving cold front ended the heatwave that had kept temperatures well above thirty degrees in this part of the world for a week. I noticed the front effects in our village in the late afternoon when the wind began picking up. By early evening all the ingredients needed for a good storm were in place, but our village was spared. Though we avoided the severe storms other parts of the country experienced, we were, nonetheless, treated to a mesmerizing site - a long, pouchy path of mammatus clouds cutting a swath through the sky above the village.

Apparently, these cloud formations are rare. They must be because I have only come across them four or five times so far in my own. When I noticed the mammatus clouds above my house yesterday evening, I felt an odd blend of awe and disquiet, which is how I remember feeling the other times I have seen these kinds of formations. On the one hand, the strange pouch-like formations along the cloudy underbelly are delightfully enchanting, perhaps even soothing, to look at. On the other hand, the contrast between light and dark the orb-like lobes produce are somewhat unnerving, perhaps even intimidating in their unfamiliarity. The phenomenon lasted a mere fifteen minutes before it dissolved into slate-gray slab that dominated the sky for an hour. The setting sun eventually broke apart the gray and scattered its parts across a canvas of fading blue.

Luckily, I was quick-thinking enough to photograph the mammatus clouds before they disappeared. Though I think the photo itself is decent, it does not succeed in fully capturing the eerie beauty that briefly loomed above us yesterday.