We've Been Oogling This Great Australian Shelf Cloud Attacking Sydney For Three Days Now

A lifeguard at Bondi Beach, Sydney Australia
enjoys the oncoming massive shelf cloud last week.  

Earlier in the week, a big thunderstorm loomed over Sydney, Australia and the nearby famed Bondi Beach.

The shelf cloud associated with this storm was just awesome, as you can tell by the photos in this post and the video at the bottom of this post.

Shelf clouds form along the gust front of an approaching strong or severe thunderstorm. The onrushing gust from the storm creates a snowplow like feature in the clouds. That's the shelf cloud.

Shelf clouds are often scary looking, and are a sign that a severe thunderstorm is approaching, so you want to take cover.

However, they aren't tornadoes. Sometimes shelf clouds hang low, as little as a couple hundred feet off the ground and scud clouds hanging below them resemble tornadoes. But shelf clouds aren't tornadic.

The Sydney Morning Herald said some of the storms produced damaging winds, golf ball sized hail and torrential rains.

But the big show was the shelf cloud, described by many media outlets as a "cloud tsunami."

Here's two time lapse view of this great storm, filmed by Will Reid and Hugo Vann: