Great Britain-shaped cloud spotted

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Cloud which looks like a map of the UKImage source, Golcar Matt/WeatherWatchers
Image caption,
The photograph was sent into the BBC Weather Watchers page

A cloud looking like a map of Great Britain has been spotted.

Huddersfield photographer Golcar Matt snapped the cloud in the East Midlands and submitted it to the BBC Weather Watchers website.

BBC Weather presenter Alina Jenkins said it was a common cumulus cloud, which can often be seen forming shapes in the sky.

"They're formed by the sun heating the air at the surface," she said.

"The air then rises and as it does it cools and condenses to create the "cotton wool" type clouds which often take on interesting shapes.

"How many times have you thought one looks like an elephant or a train for example?"

She added: "It would have been quite a bit larger earlier in the afternoon but once we started to lose some of the daytime heating it began to break up and for a short time looked like a map of the UK."

Commenting on the photograph on Facebook, Andrew Yeung said: "This is how Hard Brexit will look," while Dru Lawson said: "Leaked pics of the UK doing a Brexit."

Christopher Broadbent said: "I know what it's meant to look like but all I can see is the ghost in the original Ghostbuster film in the opening library scene."

The photograph follows other recent interesting captures of our skies, including one of a cloud shaped like Concorde and a rare lunar rainbow, called a moonbow.

Image source, Thomas Beresford
Image caption,
Concorde cloud was snapped by an amateur photographer in North Yorkshire
Image source, Ben Gwynne
Image caption,
Moonbows are fairly rare and are made by moonlight rather than sunlight

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