A showcase of unusual clouds — lenticular UFO clouds, asperitas waves, glowing nacreous clouds, and towering fire clouds.
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From stacked lenticular “UFO” clouds to stormy asperitas, glowing nacreous skies and wildfire-born pyrocumulus, this page is your master guide to the world’s strangest unusual clouds. Some are born from wind and mountains, others from lightning and fire, and a few form at the very edge of space.
These clouds confuse pilots, inspire myths, and regularly go viral. Meteorologists classify them by physics — wave, convective, stratospheric, mesospheric — while folklore calls them omens.
This hub collects the best examples, quick IDs, photography tips, and science explainers so you can name that weird sky thing fast.
Key facts (TL;DR)
- Unusual clouds are real atmospheric structures caused by waves, storms, ice crystals, or fire.
- Main families: Wave clouds, Storm clouds, Glowing upper-atmosphere clouds, and Fire clouds.
- Fast ID: Smooth discs = lenticular; boiling towers = storms; glowing twilight = high altitude; smoke-fed towers = fire clouds.
Explore Unusual Clouds by Physics
- 🛸 Lenticular & UFO Clouds — stacked saucers, rotor clouds, mountain wave clouds, and classic “UFO skies”.
- 🌩️ Severe Storm Cloud Formations — mammatus, shelf clouds, wall clouds, and turreted cumulonimbus.
- ✨ Upper-Atmosphere & Glowing Clouds — nacreous clouds, noctilucent clouds, polar stratospheric clouds, twilight colors.
- 🌊 Wave & Rare Cloud Structures — asperitas, Kelvin-Helmholtz waves, roll clouds, and the Morning Glory.
- 🔥Fire & Eruption Clouds — pyrocumulus, PyroCb, volcanic ash clouds, and firestorms.
What Kind of Weird Cloud Did You See?
- Looks like a flying saucer: Lenticular cloud
- Sky looks like a stormy ocean: Asperitas
- Dark wedge rolling toward you: Shelf cloud
- Glowing blue clouds after sunset: Noctilucent clouds
- Huge cloud rising from smoke: Pyrocumulus
