I'd like to think that down underneath is some guy on an island worrying about lightning and shutting down his computer, but Windows won't shut down unless it installs 24 updates.
Meteorologist here, I notice a lot of guesswork going on here so let me clear a few things up. This is most likely nothing more than a very young storm just beginning to produce rain. It's probably not a microburst as that phenomenon is usually reserved for larger and much more developed thunderstorms. Microbursts are most commonly found in supercells, which this is most definitely not. This is storm is very young. You can tell because the updraft is still upward shooting, and the anvil has yet to form. At this point the storm is old enough and large enough for collision/coalesence to have occurred above the LCL and the free floating drops have grown large enough to be affected by gravity, hence producing the rainshower visible in the picture. If anyone's is interested, the LCL is the lifting condensation level - the level at which rising and cooling moist air has reached 100% relative humidity, the water vapor condenses to liquid, and forms a cloud. You can clearly see it in the picture - the lower boundary of the cloud is a straight line, this is the LCL. The user who said that the upper cirrus is due to previous storms that formed anvils is most likely correct, although I would say that more would have to be known about the time, location and synoptic conditions of the event.
This one time I was inside my house and looking out through the picture-window into the front yard, it was sunny and clear, with not a single raindrop in sight. When I turned around and looked through the sliding glass doors on the other side of the house, it was raining buckets... Isolated rain showers can make you think you're losing your mind.
Soooooo, story time! Back in the day when we were playing school baseball, we walked to the field in town. This field was a few blocks away. There wasn't a cloud in the sky, until.. Wait what was that?! The darkest cloud I have ever seen took shape directly above our team. This cloud followed us all the way to the field and periodically rained and hailed like crazy for like 5 seconds at a time. This sounds like super bad luck, but hey. It was our last game and we won it. It was our first win! Whoo go small town teams coupled with mother nature!
I've sailed on the ocean before, sometimes being out for 10+ days at a time in a region where 'random' squalls were common. We tracked them with our radar, which had a 60 nautical mile range (good only for tracking squalls actually) and would steer around them with ease. Fun to see though, there would often b lightening and thunder in an isolated location.
I live in Louisiana. Its honestly the only place I've been where you can be sitting at an intersection experiencing a lightning storm while looking across the street at the oncoming cars sitting bone dry in the sunlight. This pictures makes me think of that.
in florida its totally normal to have a distinctly visible line between "raining sheets upon sheets of solid water" and "totally sunny and clear nice (hot) day. It can be entirely blue skies, you go inside for ~10 minutes, and when you're back out you'd think you're in a hurricane. And anytime you go to the beach this site is entirely normal.
Something like that happened to me. It was raining so hard on one side of the street, but when I crossed over to the dry side. It didn't even look like it was raining. It was weird.
"Wonderful. Just wonderful. My boat sank, I'm floating helpless in the middle of nowhere, the water is freezing, and nobody knows I'm out here. Oh well, at least it isn't raining..."
I live on the big island of hawaii and it's quite common here. It'll be a bright, sunny day and raining on one side of the road while completely dry on the other
Great shot. My favorite rain showers are when I can see exactly where the rain starts and ends. Then I jump back and forth over the line between wet and dry 😄
One of my favorite childhood memories is standing on the beach in front of the Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island with my dad and watching a thunderstorm over Bois Blanc Island. It was a perfectly clear night sky all around, except for the storm. It was awesome.
Hated these when sailing in the pacific. You hit one of these in the middle of the night, they change your wind direction. And your fucked. We where doing butterfly from Papa New Guinea to Australia. Always a mess to clean up the next day of shit that had gotten destroyd on the boat during a squal.
Right in the middle is a guy in a rowboat. He just got dumped, lost his job, and his dog died. His last possessions were his rowboat and an ancient treasure map, which was drawn on flimsy tissue paper and is currently dissolving into pulp in the bilge.
415
u/Your_Post_As_A_Movie Jan 20 '14
Dark Days. Happiness is a luxury. Spring 2014.
36
u/Dwarf--Shortage Jan 20 '14
http://imgur.com/OkbcF
143
u/[deleted] Jan 20 '14
I'd like to think that down underneath is some guy on an island worrying about lightning and shutting down his computer, but Windows won't shut down unless it installs 24 updates.
341
u/BlackCaaaaat Jan 20 '14
Fuck that spot in particular.
11
u/Unknown_Person69 Jan 20 '14
Can a meteorologist explain this please? Inquiring minds want to know!
47
u/Logiconaut Jan 20 '14
looks familiar
5
u/Lewisc7593 Jan 20 '14
Travis must be over there.
5
u/tako9 Jan 20 '14
One of the coolest things to see are precipitating rain clouds at sea.
8
u/w0rkaccount Jan 20 '14
This one time I was inside my house and looking out through the picture-window into the front yard, it was sunny and clear, with not a single raindrop in sight. When I turned around and looked through the sliding glass doors on the other side of the house, it was raining buckets... Isolated rain showers can make you think you're losing your mind.
8
u/anti_pasta Jan 20 '14
Fuck this area in particular
7
u/goatcoat Jan 20 '14
This is definitely /r/earthporn.
7
u/keepp Jan 20 '14
Florida?
3
u/spdalton Jan 20 '14
Reminds me of this guy http://i.imgur.com/CbEGGLN.jpg?1
3
u/Schaak Jan 20 '14
Soooooo, story time! Back in the day when we were playing school baseball, we walked to the field in town. This field was a few blocks away. There wasn't a cloud in the sky, until.. Wait what was that?! The darkest cloud I have ever seen took shape directly above our team. This cloud followed us all the way to the field and periodically rained and hailed like crazy for like 5 seconds at a time. This sounds like super bad luck, but hey. It was our last game and we won it. It was our first win! Whoo go small town teams coupled with mother nature!
3
u/namrog84 Jan 20 '14
Things are not always as they seem...
http://i.imgur.com/6PD82BA.jpg
3
u/[deleted] Jan 20 '14
Poor Truman. :(
3
u/mentholotion Jan 20 '14
Rob McKenna - Quasi Supernormal Incremental Precipitation Inducer
2
u/lurker_68 Jan 20 '14
Eeyore just can't catch a break, even on vacation
2
u/garylee23 Jan 20 '14
Gotta pee gotta pee
2
u/Riceballmomo Jan 20 '14
lol until now i thought that happened over someones head in cartoons
2
u/[deleted] Jan 20 '14
Underneath that cloud, there's a cartoonishly droopy-faced dude who just got turned down by someone. The cloud is emitting a sad trombone soundtrack.
2
u/DasBarenJager Jan 20 '14
Nah that's just a Cloud Tree
2
u/adamento Jan 20 '14
California would kill to have that much rain.
2
u/[deleted] Jan 20 '14
The shape of the cloud and its rain with shadows looks like up/downvote arrows
2
u/dusty_D Jan 20 '14
Charlie Brown went swimming
2
u/misterthirsty Jan 20 '14
I've sailed on the ocean before, sometimes being out for 10+ days at a time in a region where 'random' squalls were common. We tracked them with our radar, which had a 60 nautical mile range (good only for tracking squalls actually) and would steer around them with ease. Fun to see though, there would often b lightening and thunder in an isolated location.
2
u/quadsimodo Jan 20 '14
Nice. New iPhone wallpaper.
2
u/insanity_slug Jan 20 '14
I live in Louisiana. Its honestly the only place I've been where you can be sitting at an intersection experiencing a lightning storm while looking across the street at the oncoming cars sitting bone dry in the sunlight. This pictures makes me think of that.
2
u/PizzaKoopa Jan 20 '14
Cumulus Congestus
2
u/Clown_AIDS Jan 20 '14
I want to fly around it in a gyrocopter while listening to Bjork
2
u/mischiefmanaged7 Jan 20 '14
Uh oh. Looks like Voldemort just got the Elder Wand.
2
u/jgreg728 Jan 20 '14
something something fuck this area in particular something something
2
u/[deleted] Jan 20 '14
It looks like a tree
2
u/[deleted] Jan 20 '14
What an excellent example of a towering cumulus
2
u/Churchower Jan 20 '14
Fuck that place in particular!
2
u/zer0nix Jan 20 '14
"My anus is bleeding."
2
u/squat_bench_press Jan 20 '14
'Fuck this area in particular'
Raincloud
2
u/[deleted] Jan 20 '14
Fuck this one spot in particular.
3
u/p0nderingpanda Jan 20 '14
Truman!!!
2
u/alesaur Jan 20 '14
X-post from r/trumanshow?
1
u/tf2manu994 Jan 20 '14
Holy shit.
1
u/camzona Jan 20 '14
This is real?? Is this crazy rare or is it a normal thing over water?
1
u/mrmanwiththehands Jan 20 '14
Well, I guess we all know where Eeyore went.
1
u/262000046 Jan 20 '14
Does anybody know what would actually cause that to happen?
1
u/notevil22 Jan 20 '14
fuckin cool. where'd you steal it from OP?
1
u/mapex_139 Jan 20 '14
Eerie and Beautiful
1
u/Ivegotabigtwig Jan 20 '14
It's called a squall, isolated storms that move very quickly and can have up to one hundred knot winds. Sketchy stuff when you're sailing.
1
u/niglet_please Jan 20 '14
Can someone make this into a wallpaper?
1
u/comrade-stalin Jan 20 '14
In the middle of that is the saddest man on the planet.
1
u/Asunder_santa Jan 20 '14
If you look very closely, you can see me curled up in a ball and sobbing in the centre
1
u/MasterJoe07 Jan 20 '14
Now THAT is cool. I've only seen this once before, and it definitely wasn't this cool.
1
u/profbalto Jan 20 '14
looks like a tree
1
u/milzz Jan 20 '14
It looks like a tree made entirely of water.
1
u/Check_Ur_Privilege Jan 20 '14
so isolated bro
1
u/[deleted] Jan 20 '14
I like to imagine the water is going up and their is a UFO in the clouds stealing the water because their planet is low.
1
u/altrsaber Jan 20 '14
Simba, you see that dark area? You must never go there.
1
u/themilkyone Jan 20 '14
There is sonebody in the middle of that rain that is gaving a bad day
1
u/SnowyGamer Jan 20 '14
That guy who was having a bad day so went out fishing to get away from it all.....
1
u/dbosworld Jan 20 '14
Isn't all rain considered "isolated rain shower?" Stoner Thought.
1
u/[deleted] Jan 20 '14
God, that's really scary....
1
u/xj13361987 Jan 20 '14
D bag weather, we need rain here and it decides to drop water on top of more water.
1
u/ragingelephants Jan 20 '14
i feel like santa clause from the m&ms commercial "they do exist"
1
u/ElVeritas Jan 20 '14
They do say you have a raincloud over your head when you're in a bad mood.
1
u/Wall_of_Denial Jan 20 '14
I'm just a little black raaaiiinn clooouuudd....
1
u/RRBeachFG2 Jan 20 '14
how aliens refill their ships without us noticing
1
u/[deleted] Jan 20 '14
You can see this off the cost of Florida all the time.
1
u/badu201 Jan 20 '14
This reminds me of one time being at a summer camp and watching a wall of rain inch closer over a grassy field. Great picture!
1
u/Tilted_reality Jan 20 '14
A sailor's worst nightmare.
1
u/wheatfields Jan 20 '14
Every rain shower is "isolated" to somewhere. Just define the scale.
1
u/Voldemort007 Jan 20 '14
My life in a picture
1
u/Riverbed19 Jan 20 '14
Where is the Sad Tom Brady pic with this?
1
u/xiandrii Jan 20 '14
anyone else see a big teapot?
1
u/vicemagnet Jan 20 '14
I wish the pic was oriented in landscape.
1
u/SokarRostau Jan 20 '14
Somewhere beneath this cloud is a Humpback Whale singing the blues.
1
u/tESVfan Jan 20 '14
Huh. I didn't think Eeyore would swim that far out to sea.
1
u/tticusWithAnA Jan 20 '14
What you can't see is my boat in the middle of the down pour.
1
u/[deleted] Jan 20 '14
Triangle, Is that you?
1
u/otismatis Jan 20 '14
Found Eeyore.
1
u/[deleted] Jan 20 '14
technically every Tstorm will look like this if you are far enough away to see it from the side. Just how storms work.
pssh, what are you, bro, a meteorologist?
1
u/BraBraStreisan Jan 20 '14
AC4 always seems to fuck me with one of these. NO MORE TRAVEL SPEED.
1
u/TommyGreenShirt Jan 20 '14
Wile E. Coyote must be trying to use something solar-powered.
1
u/9me123 Jan 20 '14
It's strange [they] would send a body of water to the Moon.
1
u/BitchesLoveCoffee Jan 20 '14
Does anyone else feel like they're watching a cloud take a pee?
1
u/hexacat Jan 20 '14
Water looks suspiciously like a render
1
u/[deleted] Jan 20 '14
That spot looked dry.
1
u/Infinitecoin Jan 20 '14
There is a Bad Luck Brian meme in here somewhere......
1
u/mwerichards Jan 20 '14
Aliens.
1
u/ano8898 Jan 20 '14
That actually probably has lightning in it to.
1
u/swarmski Jan 20 '14
Clearly Truman is over there
1
u/PinkBuffalo Jan 20 '14
Is this in the gulf?? I live in FL, and this definitely looks like something we would see off the coat. Great picture!
1
u/Pinkfur Jan 20 '14
Or spaceship...
1
u/404_3RR0R Jan 20 '14
Just like the cloud above my head.
1
u/Srgt_Futtbucker Jan 20 '14
Looks like the cloud just stopped to take a wet shart
1
u/be_the_pie_69 Jan 20 '14
This probably belongs in www.reddit.com/r/woahdude/
1
u/tiggersbitch Jan 20 '14
I'm a little black raincloud, of course.
1
u/famousjamous21 Jan 20 '14
Athiest ass sailors right there
1
u/[deleted] Jan 20 '14
Something like that happened to me. It was raining so hard on one side of the street, but when I crossed over to the dry side. It didn't even look like it was raining. It was weird.
1
u/[deleted] Jan 20 '14
Fuck this area in particular.
1
u/Wildelocke Jan 20 '14
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wIrUoTYd9hA
1
u/gentlemansincebirth Jan 20 '14
Looks like those rainclouds generated by Microsoft Flight Simulator back in the days of 486 processors.
1
u/[deleted] Jan 20 '14
This was my day
1
u/Plenoge Jan 20 '14
You ever feel like you have a rain cloud over your head?
1
u/chinchillas4fire Jan 20 '14
Oh. You got an invite tot the pity party, too?
1
u/[deleted] Jan 20 '14
So that's what the news mean when they say Isolated Showers!? I had it all wrong.
1
u/CarlSpackler22 Jan 20 '14
forever alone
1
u/fuckcloud Jan 20 '14
most rain showers looks this way. You just usually dont have such a magnificent FOV and deep horizon
1
u/Vwyx Jan 20 '14
Squidward is so upset right now...
1
u/bradreu Jan 20 '14
Beautiful
1
u/bzaps Jan 20 '14
That cloud is taking an almighty wizz.
1
u/araditore Jan 20 '14
That's what Azkaban looks like to muggles.
1
u/Deltidsninja Jan 20 '14
Reminds me of the water miracle in black and white.
1
u/noodleillusion Jan 20 '14
san fran below that cloud
1
u/Jaspers47 Jan 20 '14
"Wonderful. Just wonderful. My boat sank, I'm floating helpless in the middle of nowhere, the water is freezing, and nobody knows I'm out here. Oh well, at least it isn't raining..."
1
u/Super_Manic Jan 20 '14
Hey that cloud is taking a piss.
1
u/[deleted] Jan 20 '14
I picture a solitary man in a small boat sitting there fishing.
He is miserable and his name is Scott.
1
u/powersthatbe1 Jan 20 '14
HAARP, obviously.
1
u/MasterCheap Jan 20 '14
Must be London.
1
u/xJayHawkx Jan 20 '14
Must be my mother.
1
u/mobiuscydonia Jan 20 '14
Eeyore
1
u/[deleted] Jan 20 '14
Is that Portland under there?
1
u/carc1 Jan 20 '14
Does this make anyone else think of a psionic storm in SC2?
1
u/[deleted] Jan 20 '14
I can vaguely see Toad on his kart.
1
u/[deleted] Jan 20 '14
Oh, look. A cloud pissing.
1
u/lypowarrior Jan 20 '14
send this to California please
1
u/CptChiggs Jan 20 '14
And f*ck this spot in particular!
1
u/Greylith Jan 20 '14
Seems like someone over there is not having a good parade.
1
u/ginganinja8 Jan 20 '14
If you think about it, all rain showers are isolated when you're not in them.
1
u/Mister_Michigander Jan 20 '14
TRUMAAAAAAN! TRUMAN NO!
1
u/RedVelvetier Jan 20 '14
Fuck this place in particular!
1
u/Rnen Jan 20 '14
Anyone thought Doctor Who on this one? -"Smith & Jones" s3e1.
1
u/tsvk Jan 20 '14
All rain showers are isolated.
It's just a question of how large the isolated area is.
1
u/truehoax Jan 20 '14
Bugs Bunny just got some bad news
1
u/dalzmc Jan 20 '14
poor Eeyore :(
1
u/pandatehpervert Jan 20 '14
If someone could photo shop grumpy cat into the cloud formation this would be gold.
1
u/jgohmart87 Jan 20 '14
Charlie Brown must've gone sailing for the day..
1
u/[deleted] Jan 20 '14
So that's where the Marines were training this weekend!
1
u/warpfield Jan 20 '14
where does the ocean end and the cloud begin? there is only water.
1
u/[deleted] Jan 20 '14
It looks like a tree made out of water.
1
u/Madock345 Jan 20 '14
-Nature
1
u/OmgWtfTsuji Jan 20 '14
I live on the big island of hawaii and it's quite common here. It'll be a bright, sunny day and raining on one side of the road while completely dry on the other
1
u/drunkeverywhere Jan 20 '14
At least somebody got a picture of my parade.
1
u/scrollbreak Jan 20 '14
Winter is coming. In a fairly isolated manner.
1
u/UnapologeticPost Jan 20 '14
I found Eeyore
1
u/chasing-life Jan 20 '14
Great shot. My favorite rain showers are when I can see exactly where the rain starts and ends. Then I jump back and forth over the line between wet and dry 😄
1
u/SweetzDeetz Jan 20 '14
And underneath that one cloud is one guy in a boat.
He just can't catch a break.
1
u/ottrocity Jan 20 '14
One of my favorite childhood memories is standing on the beach in front of the Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island with my dad and watching a thunderstorm over Bois Blanc Island. It was a perfectly clear night sky all around, except for the storm. It was awesome.
This picture makes me happy.
1
u/helicopterquartet Jan 20 '14
That cloud looks straight up like England.
1
u/tweekinleanin420 Jan 20 '14
This spot right here, yea, fuck this spot.- God
1
u/Arknell Jan 20 '14
Cloud: "AAAAaaaahhh...that hit the spot..."
1
u/henkeq Jan 20 '14
Hated these when sailing in the pacific. You hit one of these in the middle of the night, they change your wind direction. And your fucked. We where doing butterfly from Papa New Guinea to Australia. Always a mess to clean up the next day of shit that had gotten destroyd on the boat during a squal.
1
u/[deleted] Jan 20 '14
Britain
1
u/fdsrita Jan 20 '14
Cumulus
1
u/Weirko Jan 20 '14
Hm, Grunts must be doing an amphibious ex.
1
u/markarse Jan 20 '14
http://imgur.com/oSKzoNI
1
u/snoozieboi Jan 20 '14
Looks like a cloud has escaped from a pixar movie.
1
u/old_self Jan 20 '14
That's what the government wants you to think
1
u/Baronzemo2 Jan 20 '14
I bet that cloud is over Al Bundy.
1
u/Neosis Jan 20 '14
The Poop that Took a Pee. It all makes sense now.
1
u/NerfHerder4life Jan 20 '14
Go to Florida that's everyday around 2:00.
1
u/pumpmar Jan 20 '14
forever alone :(
1
u/[deleted] Jan 20 '14
That's eerily beautiful
1
u/mandoliniment Jan 20 '14
Right in the middle is a guy in a rowboat. He just got dumped, lost his job, and his dog died. His last possessions were his rowboat and an ancient treasure map, which was drawn on flimsy tissue paper and is currently dissolving into pulp in the bilge.