Bolton's beautiful cloud formations having people looking up

Some likened them to an explosion of foam against a blue sky.

But many reached for their cameras to capture the unusual sight, which started yesterday and can still be seen in some places today.

Among those were The Bolton News Camera Club members.

Member Barbara Lane said: "So beautiful not often you will see cloud formations like these in Bolton."

It is believed they are cumulus clouds or altocumulus clouds

The Met Office says that cumulus clouds are "detached, individual, cauliflower-shaped clouds usually spotted in fair weather conditions".

Picture by Barbara Lane

On its website, The Met Office states: "As air heated at the surface is lifted, it cools and water vapour condenses to produce the cloud. Throughout the day, if conditions allow, these can grow in height and size and can eventually form into cumulonimbus clouds.

"Along coastlines, cumulus may form over land during daylight hours as a sea breeze brings in moist air, which is then warmed by the surface. This effect reverses overnight as the sea becomes warmer than the land and cumulus form over the sea."

by Amy Nolan-Podmore

The Met Office states altocumulus are small mid-level layers or patches of clouds, called cloudlets, which most commonly exist in the shape of rounded clumps.

Gillian McGowan took this picture

"There are many varieties of altocumulus, however, meaning they can appear in a range of shapes. Altocumulus are made up of a mix of ice and water, giving them a slightly more ethereal appearance than the big and fluffy lower level cumulus," states The Met Office.

by Kirsty Yates

But both formations are often called a mackerel sky, which is a common term for clouds made up of rows of cirrocumulus or altocumulus clouds displaying pattern similar in appearance to fish scales which this is caused by high altitude atmospheric wave.

And the beautiful formations have certainly enraptured the people of Bolton.