Here in Big Sky Country, you can often see storms building up over several hours as they move in. When I lived in Ontario, storms were usually part of giant weather front that would be hundreds of kilometres long, stretching down into central United States, and sky would often just get darker and darker until the storm was there. But here, close to the mountains, we don’t see those kinds of systems develop. Instead, it can be lots of big, individual clouds, and with fewer trees and open land, you can see them a long way off!
This storm I was able to watch for over an hour until I was in the right place and at the right time, just before the sun dipped behind the mountains. It had the classic anvil shape until just before I took the pictures when the strong updraft punched over the top.
This looks like it may have been taken of the storm that went over us the evening of July 25. The the round multi layered part of the cloud on the right background part of the picture is what I’m looking at. I posted pictures on my Facebook site. It was a very unique formation and it came right over our house. We didn’t get anything except wind from various directions, but in town they got some hail and we could hear the sound of it falling.
Take a look at my pictures. My camera is just a easyshare Kodak so the detail and quality is not like you would get, but interesting.
That is indeed the same storm. The lower levels of the shelf cloud can not be easily seen in these pictures, but I could see them when I zoomed in. I was quite a way off for these pictures, but I figured it would look pretty scary for those under it!