Thunder Cloud

I took this storm image last night from my backyard in the Texas panhandle. I used a Topaz filter to bring out all the beautiful details in this... more

by Karen Slagle

Title

Thunder Cloud

Artist

Karen Slagle

Medium

Photograph - Photography

Description

I took this storm image last night from my backyard in the Texas panhandle. I used a Topaz filter to bring out all the beautiful details in this cloud.

Note: The Fine Art American watermark will not be on your image.

Cumulonimbus clouds are typically accompanied by lower altitude cumulus clouds, growing vertically instead of horizontally, contributing to the mushroom shape of the cumulonimbus. The cumulonimbus base may extend several miles across and occupy low to middle altitudes- formed at altitude from approximately 500 to 13,000 ft (200 to 4,000 m). Peaks typically reach to as much as 20,000 ft (6,000 m), with extreme instances as high as 75,000 ft (23,000 m). Well-developed cumulonimbus clouds are characterized by a flat, anvil-like top (anvil dome), caused by wind shear or inversion near the tropopause. The shelf of the anvil may precede the main cloud's vertical component for many miles, and be accompanied by lightning. Occasionally, rising air parcels surpass the equilibrium level (due to momentum) and form an overshooting top culminating at the maximum parcel level. When vertically developed, this largest of all clouds usually extends through all three cloud regions. Even the smallest cumulonimbus cloud dwarfs its neighbors in comparison.

Cumulonimbus calvus: cloud with puffy top, similar to cumulus congestus which it develops from; under the correct conditions in can become a cumulonimbus capillatus
Cumulonimbus capillatus - cloud with cirrus-like, fibrous-edged top

Uploaded

September 3rd, 2014