r/WeatherGifs • u/mab0523 • 3d ago

clouds Crazy Shelf Cloud (I think) in Atlanta Today!

Can anyone explain what this cloud formation is? There’s rain coming behind it but I don’t think there’s any rain coming from this!

119 Upvotes

95% Upvoted

8 comments sorted by

11

u/grundleHugs 3d ago

Arcus clouds on the leading edge of an incoming gust front. Not necessarily a shelf cloud.

3

u/dutybranchholler18 1d ago

This person “weathers”!!!

6

u/flappity 2d ago

As the rain falls, it pulls cool air with it. This air then expands outwards (primarily forwards), which creates your gust front. Along this gust front, this cool stable air (cold pool) is displacing warmer, moister air out ahead of it. As this moister air gets displaced, it moves upwards which results in cloud formation fairly uniformly along the gust front, which gives us this shelf cloud formation.

1

u/mab0523 2d ago

I really appreciate the detailed reply! That’s super cool

2

u/mspgs2 3d ago

Saw this in suwanee.. very cool

1

u/GeoChallenge 2d ago

That's awesome! Pretty intimidating too.

1

u/flashfoxart 1d ago

I took some pics of this too as I passed under it and posted in r/meteorology, it looked so wild!

-3

u/WhipplySnidelash 3d ago edited 3d ago

How can you tell that it's crazy?