Winners of the Weather Photographer of the Year Contest Celebrate the Beauty of Nature

“Mountain Skyscape” by Angela Lambourn (UK). Finalist.
“During the late afternoon, following a midwinter's day spent hiking in the mountains under a cloudless sky, Angela spotted these glorious lenticular clouds. They had developed above the mountains, behind the coastal town of Nerja on the Costa del Sol.
A lenticular cloud is a lens, or saucer-shaped cloud, which forms when stable air is forced to rise over a hill or mountain. This disturbance in the horizontal airflow can develop waves in the air downstream, similar to the ripples you see as water flows over a rock. These waves generally stay in the same place as the wind blows through them, hence their name ‘standing waves'. If the air is sufficiently moist, a lenticular cloud can form in the crest of a wave. Either directly over or just to the lee (sheltered side) of the mountain.
As Angela observed, close to sunrise or sunset, the display of these clouds often becomes more spectacular by the minute, with the golden light of the sun illuminating the clouds beneath.”