Thunderhead Over New South Wales
January 07, 2008
Provided and copyright by: Phillip Lachman
Summary authors & editors: Phillip Lachman
Late in the afternoon on July 7, 2007, I observed this looming thunderhead over Hawks Nest beach, on the mid-north coast of New South Wales, Australia. Its anvil shape, illuminated by the low Sun behind the camera, shows that this is a mature cumulonimbus cloud. When the top of a rising storm cloud reaches the tropopause (boundary of the troposphere and stratosphere), it flattens out, due to the strong winds that occur there, resulting in the characteristic anvil shape.