Flammagenitus (cloud) This is a process not yet fully understood, but is probably in some way associated with charge separation induced by severe turbulence, and, perhaps, by the nature of the particles of ash in the cloud. Large flammagenitus can contain temperatures well below freezing, and the electrostatic properties of any ice that forms may also play a role. A flammagenitus that produces lightning is actually a type of cumulonimbus, a thundercloud, and is called cumulonimbus flammagenitus. The World Meteorological Organization formerly classified flammagenitus and cumulonimbus flammagenitus respectively as cumulus (mediocris or congestus) and cumulonimbus. In 2017, the WMO International Cloud Atlas
Cloud cloud of this type is the Morning Glory, a rolling cylindrical cloud that appears unpredictably over the Gulf of Carpentaria in Northern Australia. Associated with a powerful "ripple" in the atmosphere, the cloud may be "surfed" in glider aircraft. More general airmass instability in the troposphere tends to produce clouds of the more freely convective cumulus genus type, whose species are mainly indicators of degrees of atmospheric instability and resultant vertical development of the clouds. A cumulus cloud initially forms in the low level of the troposphere as a cloudlet of the species "humilis" that shows only slight vertical development.