Complimentary Drink With a Side of Thunderstorms! (credit: @PaulKingstonNNP via Meteo Europe)

DISCUSSION: It’s not every day that people get a view like this! A passenger on an airplane flying over Sarajevo, Bosnia yesterday at around sunset filmed a time lapse of quickly maturing cumulonimbus clouds while cruising at an altitude of 37,500 feet (about 11,430 meters). In the beginning of the video, shown below, there are cumulonimbus clouds which exhibited neat structural changes in the form of moisture associated with its updrafts being fanned outward by strong upper-level winds, creating the flat and thin-looking features called anvils.  Later on in this footage, low-level clouds as well as other developing cumulonimbus clouds were spotted.  The favorable conditions which facilitated the development of these storms included plenty of moisture (i.e., most likely garnered from the Adriatic Sea), sufficient instability (i.e., from daytime heating), and lift (i.e., as a result of orographic enhancement due to the presence of geographic features such as the Dinaric Alps).  To learn about other high-impact weather events across Europe, click here!