Northeast Kansas was in the risk for severe weather on April 23, 2010. Many people were very happy we didn’t end up with any severe weather, in fact, clouds cleared out nicely making for a beautiful sunset.

Skies were clear for much of the area; you could even see the moon.

In the distance, a few storms were developing.

No severe weather for April 24, 2010, however this SLC (scary looking cloud) could be seen in Topeka and Lawrence during the evening. Many people mistook this cloud for a wall cloud, but it was actually a shelf cloud.

A shelf cloud normally appears on the leading edge of a thunderstorm, where a wall cloud is normally on the back of a storm. Shelf clouds can be accompanied by dangerous wind gusts and gustnadoes along a gust front. Tornadoes typically come from rotating wall clouds, although not all wall clouds rotate and not all rotating wall clouds produce tornadoes.

April Evans, Lecompton, also captured a great photograph of the shelf cloud on April 24, 2010 (below). Thanks for sharing your picture with us, April.