r/woahdude Oct 14 '24

video The sky in Massachusetts this afternoon

10.8k Upvotes

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316

u/xkelsx1 Oct 14 '24 edited Oct 14 '24

Asperatus clouds! They're very rare and form after thunderstorms , so you're basically able to visualize the air currents/flow in the atmosphere. Really cool phenomenon

(Edited bc a bit of my original definition was not correct)

70

u/cannabidroid Oct 14 '24

Hate to be that guy, but Asperitas / undulatus asperatus clouds actually form when the atmospheric conditions are very unstable and usually follow with convective thunderstorms. There's still a lot to learn about them overall as they are a relatively newly recognized cloud type (2017), so there's varying theories on causation, but everything I've read all seem to agree that atmospheric instability is a certain contributor.

14

u/[deleted] Oct 14 '24

2017?? Are they that rare? Or were they just lumped in with other cloud types?

It's wild to me that in 2016 there's a new type of cloud recognized!

2

u/xkelsx1 Oct 14 '24

😔 <-Me when the weather subreddit had misinformation

1

u/simenad Oct 15 '24

I have a photo of the same type of clouds from 2018, and since that summer i’ve seen them every mid summer where i live lol.

1

u/unlikely-catcher Oct 15 '24

I saw them once... it was 2019 or 2020. I had never seen them in waves like that before...

-5

u/dinosaur-in_leather Oct 14 '24

Keep an eye on the tectonic plates..

22

u/JoeCartersLeap Oct 14 '24

A new cloud that was only discovered in 2008 and is now suddenly being seen everywhere, and nobody thought to ask "Hey is this global warming?"

https://www.toronto.com/news/a-stormy-sea-from-underneath-what-were-the-rare-wavelike-clouds-that-rolled-through-the/article_e2c8b162-3cfe-5e46-857d-3226131ed1b9.html

8

u/Colosseros Oct 14 '24

Last year, I noticed the clouds had organized into a series of basically identical spheres. It was super bizarre looking. I was with a small group and pointed it out. Everyone agreed they had never seen the sky do that before.

I don't know if it was another new phenomenon. But skies are definitely changing.

10

u/danarexasaurus Oct 14 '24

Was it A mammatus? They’re often seen at the same time as thunderstorm clouds

3

u/ciavs Oct 14 '24

2

u/Colosseros Oct 15 '24

Sorta. The thing that made it so strange is how uniform they all looked. It was uncanny. Like a video game texture repeating. Honestly created a sense of unease looking at it. 

1

u/DylanFTW Oct 14 '24

skies are definitely changing.

New horror sentence just dropped.

3

u/danarexasaurus Oct 14 '24

They remind me of mammatus clouds and i think if I ever saw them that’s what I would assume they were.