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A steam plume rising over the volcanic eruption in Geldingadalur in Iceland. This is not an ash cloud like in many eruptions, but just formed by the volcanic gases + heat from the 1000+°C hot lava.
Clouds are framed by an oak tree overlooking the Louisville Swamp Reserve south of Shakopee, Minnesota.
While enduring the long flight home from vacation, we passed some huge thunderheads while going through Texas airspace. Their beauty inspired me to pick up my droid phone and snap a few pics.
While originally happy with the usual beautiful cloud formation from this point of view, I started to play with the picture in the PicSay Pro app. Once I applied the mirror effect, I was shocked to see a very convincing nuclear mushroom cloud. Wow...
I further tweaked color, saturation, temperature, and some other things to end up with this rather morbid interpretation of what started out as a beautiful picture of a cloud.
I cleaned up the noise and some artifacting in Lightroom to finish it.
I have only had the opportunity to photograph Mammatus clouds in Pennsylvania on two occasions, one of them was yesterday afternoon (March 17, 2016). Unfortunately, the only camera I had available at the time was my trusty Apple iPhone 5S. I managed to capture the huge formation using the panorama mode of the camera. Tech Specs: Apple iPhone 5S, ISO 32, 1/2160 second, f/2.2, 4mm, panormama mode.
The Science: From what I have learned, the formation of these clouds is still not fully understood, there are several theories surrounding the formation. From Wikipedia - Mammatus, also known as mammatocumulus (meaning "mammary cloud"),is a meteorological term applied to a cellular pattern of pouches hanging underneath the base of a cloud. The name mammatus is derived from the Latin mamma (meaning "udder" or "breast").