Mammatus in the sky above Cagliari, the rare spectacle immortalized by Alessandro Casula

A fascinating and far from common phenomenon caught the curious eye of many Cagliari residents yesterday afternoon. At 4:25 PM, photographer Alessandro Casula captured two evocative shots depicting mammatus clouds suspended above the city sky.

Mammatus clouds are spectacular and relatively rare cloud formations that develop on the underside of cumulonimbus clouds, the massive thunderclouds .

Their most striking feature is the presence of rounded protuberances, similar to sacs or breasts, which seem to hang from the sky.

These structures take shape when pockets of cold air begin to descend through warmer layers, a movement due to atmospheric instability that gives them their unmistakable “cluster” appearance.

Typically, the appearance of mammatus can indicate the final stage of a thunderstorm, although thunderstorm activity may continue in the future.

Alessandro Casula recounts this phenomenon, which, when it appears, transforms the sky into a work of art, through his shots, thus enriching a cold November afternoon with wonder.