While helicopter pilot Andrew Park was flying over Phoenix this week, photographer Jerry Ferguson captured what appears to be a giant foreboding mushroom cloud hanging over the city. In actuality the scene is a weather cluster called a “microburst,” a phenomenon that occurs when cooled air from a thunderstorm rushes to the ground and spreads over the land at speeds over 100 miles per hour causing a powerful and centralized air current.

Ferguson captured the sight while filming the weather for a local TV station. A timelapse video by Bryan Snider shows the same microburst from Phoenix’s Sky Harbor International Airport, the camera positioned at what looks like just a couple hundred feet from the center of the storm. (via Mashable)

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