Thursday, August 04, 2011

Udders in the sky


Hey guess what?
We had udders in the sky!

I thought the clouds outside my living room window looked pretty interesting the other night, so I did like my friend Vicki always does: I ran out and took a picture.
Those cotton ball formations caught my interest so after I was done taking pictures I went and looked them up in my Cloud Identification book.

The official name of these cloud formations is Mammatus cloud.
Mammatus come from the Latin word for Mammary, Udder or Breast.
They are also casually known as Mamma clouds.
Kind of interesting that when a kid says "Mamma" he or she is cleverly calling his Mom "Mammary, Udder or Breast" in Latin.


Frankly, if my kid ever yelled out "Hey Udder!" to get my attention, I would immediately be getting his/her attention too...and escalating my attention getting efforts with a swift swat to his/her backside the second time it happened.


Mammatus clouds: Bet you will know what to call them when you spot them floating around up in the sky next time.
(Bet you will more likely forget the proper name though, and just say "Wow! Udder Clouds!"  Be prepared to be stared at when you do!)




5 comments:

ellen b. said...

The udder ones are fine but that first one is really amazing :0)

RoeH said...

Well ya' just learn somethin' every day. Mammary clouds. Whoulda guessed.

Sara at Come Away With Me said...

Udderly fascinating! Really! I'm continually amazed at what I learn on other people's blogs. I'll never look at that particular type of cloud quite the same way again!

Vicki said...

Now it's my turn to learn something about clouds from you! Those are so unusual...and so pretty!

Vee said...

I've never seen that kind of cloud. Fascinating.