A "Yoda Storm" Viewed From Maryland

A giant, distant "Yoda Cloud" looms over Interstate
70 near Frederick, Maryland last Friday. 
Photo by Laura Stark 

 Summer skies tend to be more interesting in the summer than in the winter, which is why watching the clouds go by is such a iconic seasonal activity. 

The most relaxing way to do that is to lay down in a field and watch the clouds go by, and decide which cloud looks like what person, place, or thing. 

But doing anything else in the summer can yield fun results too, if you think to look at the sky from time to time. 

Which yields, at least for me, this excellent and entertaining photo by dear friend Laura Stark. The pic was taken last Friday evening along Interstate 70 near Frederick, Maryland.  It's the Yoda cloud. 

For the three people in the world who have no idea who Yoda is, well. Yoda is of course from Star Wars, small in stature but incredibly wise and powerful.  

To be honest, though the cloud resembles Yoda, I'm not sure how much it has in common with the Star Wars character. 

The cloud is a a cumulonimbus. It's an isolated thunderstorm off in the distance. They can be seen from long distances away.  This one is likely 60 or more miles away.

It's hard to tell from the photo, but the uppermost part of it might be an overshooting top.  The Yoda cloud's "ears" are probably the anvil top of the thunderstorm, and the top of its head could be an overshooting top, a powerful updraft that pushed above what had earlier been the uppermost ceiling for the thunderstorm to grow up to.

Thunderstorms with overshooting tops are very often severe, so this one might have been. I can't figure out exactly where it was located at the time Laura snapped the photo. Severe thunderstorm reports came in that evening from northern West Virginia and southeastern Pennsylvania, so this "Yoda" storm might have been one of those. 

I don't know if the Yoda thunderstorm was wise or not, but it was almost certainly powerful.

If you have photos of fun and/or interesting clouds, send them my way.  If you want a dose of deep weather geekdom, let me know if you want me to analyze them, like I did for the now-famous Great Frederick, Maryland Distant Yoda Storm of '21.