Shelf esteem
Thunderstorms and politicians are a lot alike: Both drift with the wind, both are full of hot air and both shy away from high pressure. And, fair or not, many people judge both by their faces.
While politicians grin for votes, though, storms glower over their constituents. Some even grow strange "shelf clouds" along their leading edges, like the one pictured here over Enschede, Netherlands. These cloudy countenances stretch out ahead of a storm, sometimes foreshadowing danger and sometimes just grandstanding.
Little Chute, Wis.
As a storm cell swept across eastern Wisconsin on June 13, 2004, it was led by a haunting shelf cloud, seen here over the town of Little Chute.
The storm made for some stunning images from Greenville to Green Bay, but luckily it was less severe than the photos suggest. "Although its appearance is threatening, and almost always precedes gusty winds, the [shelf] cloud is not necessarily a precursor to severe weather," the National Weather Service explains. Still, shelf clouds can generate dangerous straight-line winds, including the rare "derecho" and "gustnado," and shouldn't be taken lightly.
Yucatán, Mexico
July is often a stormy month for Mexico's Yucatán Peninsula, and this picturesque shelf cloud on July 15, 2005, was just a precursor to a far more dangerous storm three days later.
After nearly an inch of rain on July 15, the eastern Yucatán got double that on July 18, whenHurricane Emily made landfall as a Category 4 storm. Emily left a path of destruction from Grenada to Mexico, and remains the strongest Atlantic [skipwords]hurricane[/skipwords] ever recorded in July.
Saskatchewan, Canada
Shelf clouds don't only glow blue, or from within. This one shone red, for example, as it was struck by the rising sun over the prairies of Saskatchewan, Canada, in August 2001.
http://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/climate-weather/photos/9-scary-images-of-shelf-clouds/saskatchewan-canada
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