Apocalyptic Sky Over New York Tonight

Whoa! Was Ghostbusters 3 filming tonight? Because those were some crazy clouds just after sunset. They appear to be a mammatus formation-- that's Latin for "bumpy clouds."

If you want to share your photos of mammatus clouds with us, tag them "gothamist" on Flickr or email them to tips(at)gothamist(dot)com. Update: Thanks for all your contributions—here's Saturday's Mammatus Clouds FOREVER gallery.

Contact the author of this article or email tips@gothamist.com with further questions, comments or tips.

By Jake Dobkin in News on June 26, 2009 9:08 PM

Comments [rss]

SuzieDsouza

Mammatus Clouds are usually opaque or semitransparent, which makes the entire area very dark. They often cover hundreds of kms of sky, with each mammatus having diameter of 1 to 3 kms. They can either be smooth, lumpy or ragged. These lobes generally contain a mixture of ice and water. However, in areas where ice is not common, such clouds contain only water. Because there is high content of precipitation, these clouds have lumps.

laughinganyway

Ahh I was at South Street Seaport that day, watching the free concert, and I looked up for no reason and was amazed by the clouds. Not many other people seemed as excited about it as I was, but it really was beautiful.

charlas

Thanks for posting these pictures -- they're amazing! I wish I could have been there to see it for myself. Just wanted to add a little Fun Fact: we got a tornado from this storm up in Connecticut!

Rev. Alexander Smith

As a native New Yorker viewing the photoshopped I'm

reminded of my youth and how I made it through the storm,

and rain of this journey called life.

Trilby16

Yeah, I forgot about that! I saw that weird light from my windows and went outside to stand in it for a while. Eerie!

Tower18

I too was drawn outside by the strange orange light coming in my windows after the storm. I don't recall seeing such a saturation of a single color like that...it was almost like real life had been photoshopped, with some orange-y filter over everything.

BrooklynBredTom

When I noticed it, while it was relatively light, I thought it was more of a 'vanilla sky.' Apocalyptic? No. Beautiful, though.

drewo

I'm glad everyone else saw those incredible cloud formations yesterday evening. My wife used the camera on her cell phone for the first time to take some pictures. Thanks for posting all your photos!

nicemarmot

One of the few advantages of being from tornado territory i.e. the Midwest is that you see these semi-regularly. They seem to follow short, nasty thunderstorms. They are a lovely way to end the day.

dercof

It was the most spectacular sight I have ever seen. Like others have reported, people just stopped in their tracks and looked up into the sky. Truly amazing. I took these unedited photos of the sky over Columbus Circle. http://bit.ly/16jJru (facebook photo album)

Think2wice

I saw it briefly and was ready to take pictures, but visitors who drove from Atlanta had just arrived and I had to spend that evening making pleasantries indoors instead.

felixthecat2

great pictures, yes it was amazing view today

dagblad

Maybe Michael Jackson is still performing up there somewhere.

breaknight

Walked out of a bar in Tribeca to this amazing sky. We got lucky that it occurred right at sunset, the reds and oranges made it even more beautiful, I just wish I had a camera.

I've never seen anything like it in my life.

Kevin Walsh

I shot the same sort of thing in Jamaica, Queens a few years ago....scroll down on this page

http://www.forgotten-ny.com/STREET%20SCENES/mixedbag/mixedbag.html

dadoc

Nice pic! Gorgeous!

Past Taliban

Those clouds loomed low over the city like an imminent foreclosure eviction hanging over the shoulders of a deadbeat American f@cked borrower.

dadoc

Had been videoing the storm, hoping for some Empire State Building lightning hits (yeah, everybody needs a hobby). No hits, interesting sky, kinda boring. Later, looked up from my desk, and was amazed. Never, in all these years of looking at the sky, from many places on this earth, have I seen such a sight. Spent the evening taking pictures with the kids and just staring in awe. I'm so happy that others took the time to look up and see something so beautiful and surreal. Made the month of crappy rain worth it.

schadenfreudian mensch

That's because there's suppose to be a curse on the High Line.

http://trainjotting.com/2009/06/11/high-line-curse-plays-out/

aydiosmio

woot! photo on gothamist.

These are Mammatus clouds by the way. A rare artifact of supercellular activity.

wwwavenger

Snoopy

Verizon, Sprint or AT&T?

Snoopy

Ease up people it's nothing.

I've tried this in the past using a combination of Photoshop, a nuclear explosion in Patterson New Jersey, and sacrificing 200 virgins to the God Vulcan.

This time I just boosted up the proportions.

It appears it went fairly well, Next time I will boost up the photo magenta and rhodium to see what happens.

citizenerased

Fuck! missed it. Looks/sounds amazing.

tingo

"Apocalyptic"?

Why be so negative? It was beautiful.

usernamee

these are great pics. and i've seen other great pics. but they dont even come CLOSE to a true representation of how mindblowing the sky looked tonight. i was in union square and there were hundreds of people looking up at the sky as if a spaceship were landing. it was 15 minutes of amazement that cant even be truly expressed in 2d.