Standing Clouds

Standing Clouds

Sorry for the slow update folks. Just finish my exam. Well, I bring you "Standing Clouds". This picture was taken in Smith Street. There was this big black clouds hanging in the bright bluish sky. What a contrast. I took several pictures of this phenomena from different places and angles and find this was the most interesting one.



Cumulonimbus (Cb) is a type of cloud that is tall, dense, and involved in thunderstorms and other bad weather. The clouds can form alone, in clusters, or along a cold front in a squall line.

Three ingredients are needed for the formation of a cumulonimbus cloud:

1. Plenty of moisture.
2. A mass of warm unstable air.
3. A source of energy to lift the warm, moist air mass rapidly upward.

The base of a cumulonimbus can be several miles across, and it can be tall enough to occupy middle as well as low altitudes : though formed at an altitude of about 3,000 to 4,000 meters (10,000 to 12,000 feet), its peak can reach up to 23,000 meters (75,000 feet) in extreme cases. Typically, it peaks at a much lower height.

Cumulonimbus storm cells can produce heavy rain (particularly of a convective nature) and flash flooding, as well as straight-line winds. Most storm cells die after about 20 minutes, when the precipitation causes more downdraft than updraft, causing the energy to dissipate. If there is enough solar energy in the atmosphere, however (on a hot summer's day, for example), the moisture from one storm cell can evaporate rapidly — resulting in a new cell forming just a few miles from the former one. This can cause thunderstorms to last for several hours.

(courtesy wikipedia.com)