EXPLOSIVE.  That was the first word that came to mind when I first saw this picture of a tornadic supercell taken Tuesday. If I saw this with my own eyes, I wouldn’t need an official tornado warning to tell me it was a dangerous storm.

 Notice the stacks of thin clouds above the exploding cumulonimbus?  They are a telltale sign that this storm was a powerhouse, and likely a violent severe thunderstorm

. These stacks are what are known as  pileus clouds. Pronounced like “pill-ee-us,” pileus is latin for “cap.”

 No surprise, another name for these thin clouds is “cap clouds.”  They are actually in the same cloud family as lenticular clouds, as they are high-level clouds composed of ice crystals. …