Mammatus For All Tastes

Mammatus of different shapes and colors graced the skies of Marion, Iowa on the evening of Tuesday,May 28, 2013. The formations began to appear after 7:30 PM as the underside of the anvil of a severe-warned storm located about 60 miles away in southern Washington County slid eastward. The top two images, taken at 7:54 and 7:58 PM, look northwest from Archer Drive in the Bowman Meadows housing development. The lower mammatus image, shot around 8:00 PM, looks the opposite direction and shows a dark gray shade. Also visible at lower left is a string of cumulus towers located about 60 miles to the east in Clinton County near the Mississippi River. The bottom image shows a radar perspective of the same time period. Mammatus exist in a very moist and unstable middle or upper level in the atmosphere, overlying a drier layer below an anvil produced by an adjacent cumulonimbus.