A great perk of being a REALTOR in SARASOTA is the need to drive all over the area, often on a daily basis. I get to see things and learn more about my town, something that would not happen if I was sitting in my own home! Yesterday I was back on Siesta Key for an inspection on a great home I found for a close friend from my New Jersey days. On the way home at around 8:15PM, after an intense thunderstorm, I saw the sky transforming into incredible pink golf ball shaped cloud formations. I was on Osprey and couldn't wait to get to SARASOTA BAY FRONT to park my car because, of course, I had my camera with me. I only got a few shots of these unusual clouds before they dissolved, but the continuing sunset was amazing! I have lived in California and the Caribbean and yet SARASOTA has some of the most spectacular sunsets I have ever seen! I did google the clouds and here is what I found out:

 Known as mammatus clouds, these strange, pouchy formations often occur in association with a thunderstorm. “They are some seriously weird looking clouds,” said cloud physicist Patrick Chuang.

But scientists do have some theories about mammutus clouds. Another cloud physicist, Daniel Breed of the National Center for Atmospheric Research, says buoyancy and convection of air is the key.

“They’re kind of like upside-down convection,” Breed said.

Convection is like a buoyant bubble, he said. In mammutus clouds, evaporation causes pockets of negative buoyancy as it cools the air inside the cloud. This makes the clouds puff downward instead of up like cumulus clouds, and they end up being like upside-down bubbles.