We have another question to answer!

Jim asks: "Hey, Ray, I recently heard about shelf clouds. They are an eerie sight indeed! Can you give a brief synopsis of how these fronts form?"

Shelf clouds do look scary, especially knowing they are attached to a thunderstorm. Thunderstorms are essentially systems that move heat and moisture. Big updrafts feed that heat and moisture into a storm to fuel it. As the moisture cools and condenses high up in the storm, rain and even hail form.

When the rain and hail are too heavy for the updrafts to keep them suspended, they fall.

Shelf clouds, they're scary, they're menacing, and with good reason! Getty Images

I know we have been sort of talking about a dramatic version of the water cycle so far, but this falling of precipitation is what sets up

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