Environmentmammatus cloudscloud marshmallowclouds

Insane Marshmallow Clouds Bubble Up In Severe Storms

So. Fluffy. Must. Touch.
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By 

Senior Reporter, HuffPost

Severe weather systems that moved across Texas, Colorado and Missouri this week brought not only wind, heavy rain, thunder and hail, but some bizarre and breathtaking cloud formations.

Feast your eyes on mammatus clouds:

Deriving their name from the Latin word for "udder" or "breast," these pillowy, marshmallow-looking masses are defined by the National Weather Service as "rounded, smooth, sack-like protrusions hanging from the underside of a cloud (usually a thunderstorm anvil)."

Dennis Cain, a NWS meteorologist in Dallas, told The Huffington Post that mammatus tend to accompany severe storms. By themselves, however, the clouds aren't threatening.

"Basically, they are pockets of moist air that are descending into drier air," Cain said. "I liken them to an upside-down cloud."

Mammatus clouds, often listed among the rarest of cloud formations, actually are much more common than most people think, Cain said. The reason they seem few and far between, he explained, is because they are hard to spot unless the sun is rising or setting, when sunlight illuminates their drooping underbellies.

Only then, Cain said, do mammatus look "dramatic."

Below, a look at some of the definitely dramatic mammatus clouds that dropped jaws from Texas to Missouri this week.  

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Before You Go

Extreme U.S. Weather In 2015
California snowpack at all-time recorded low(01 of06)
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In April, drought-stricken California witnessed a snowpack with virtually no snow and set an all-time recorded low in the Sierra Nevada mountains. At just 6 percent of the long-term average for that time of year, the snowpack measure shattered the previous low of 25 percent set in 1977 and again in 2014. Gov. Jerry Brown, pictured above with Frank Gehrke, chief of snow surveys for the California Department of Water Resources, announced that same day that there would be mandatory, statewide water cutbacks for the first time in history. (credit:Max Whittaker via Getty Images)
Record-breaking Boston snow didn't melt until July.(02 of06)
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Boston recorded its all-time snowiest year, with 110.6 inches between July 1, 2014, and June 30, 2015. In what grew to be an ominous reminder of how miserable the winter was, the once 75-foot-high, trash-covered "snow farm," where plows corralled the ice, didn't melt until July 14. You could even follow the snow pile on Twitter. (credit:Boston Globe via Getty Images)
Record-breaking heat scorches the U.S.(03 of06)
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Multiple states have broken heat records as 2015 shapes up to be the hottest year on record. Florida recorded its hottest March to May, while California -- seen above with tourists in Death Valley this summer -- Idaho, Oregon, Utah and Washington all logged their hottest Junes. (credit:David McNew via Getty Images)
Wettest month ever recorded leads to extreme flooding(04 of06)
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May was the all-time wettest month ever recorded in the contiguous United States in 121 years of NOAA's record-keeping. The total rainfall of 4.36 inches was 1.45 inches above average. Nowhere was the wet weather more extreme than in Texas and Oklahoma, where precipitation totaled more than twice the long-term average. Flooding claimed 23 lives and forced people like the above Houston couple to navigate roadways by boat.

In September, extreme flash floods along the Utah and Arizona border claimed 20 lives, making it the deadliest flood in Utah state history and one of the deadliest weather events of the year. (credit:AP Photo/David J. Phillip)
The U.S. gets its earliest tropical storm in 60 years.(05 of06)
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Tropical Storm Ana became the second-earliest tropical or subtropical storm to make landfall in the U.S. when it hit South Carolina on May 10. The only tropical storm to make a landfall earlier than that was in Florida in February 1952. While Ana didn't break the record, meteorologists at The Weather Channel noted that there has been an increasing frequency of tropical storms hitting before June 1 in the last decade. (Photo by NOAA via Getty Images) (credit:Handout via Getty Images)
California wildfires break spending records(06 of06)
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The catastrophic Butte Fire and Valley Fire that started in Northern California last month were so intense that the U.S. Forest Service broke its record for spending in a single week, $243 million. The high cost of fighting the simultaneous wildfires prompted the Obama administration to direct $250 million toward the efforts. (credit:Stephen Lam via Getty Images)
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