photo #7808200

These smooth globules of cloud are the features known as mamma, which are associated with pockets of cold sinking air. Vaughan Monamy (Cloud Appreciation Society Member 37,467) spotted them in Altostratus clouds over Lake Burley Griffin, Canberra, Australia. The mamma have formed in streaks of falling moisture known as virga. You can see more of these to the left, hanging from the cloud base. They’re the ghosts of rain, strands of precipitation evaporating away in the dry air below – showers that could have been.