This panoramic photo shows the initial phase of the formation of mammatus clouds being identified as `Altocumulus stratiformis opacus mamma`. Strikingly similar to what is explained in the cloud atlas with George Anderson`s photo taken in Wokingham, UK, the sky over the Maltese Islands was overcast earlier on with extensive altostratus cloud cover when some rain falling from this cloud suddenly began its transitioning to huge rounded masses. Both the weather sounding and the surface pressure chart on the second and third thumbnails showed a striking similarity to that described in the atlas as a cold front from a low pressure system centred over Sardinia crossed the Maltese Islands and the weather sounding also showed stable conditions at the surface with the cloud base starting at around 11,600 feet or 3.6km. However, a major difference was that the cold front had just raced through the Maltese Islands with the cold front seemed to had overrun the clouds that it had produced as the wind increased quickly in strength and veered to WNW whilst observing these clouds. As stated, some rain (most of it seemed to evaporate before reaching the ground) was falling from the photographed cloud. As turbulence from the cold front carried precipitation enriched moisture to the cloud, upward momentum was lost since the now saturated air bubble is heavier than the surrounding air causing it to sink. Normally, sinking air warms up as it descends into the lower atmosphere. However, in such cases when mammatus features are observed, the reverse happens as suspended precipitation absorb heat energy from the descending air to evaporate thus the air keeps cooling further whilst descending if the heat needed for evaporation exceeds the heat generated from the air`s descent thus forming the photographed pouch like structures now fully developed in the first thumbnail taken just 22 minutes after the shown cloud photo. The mammatus formation stops when the precipitation drops are fully evaporated. Big rain drops or ice crystals tend to produce very beautiful and long-lived mammatus since these consume lots of heat energy to evaporate. The fourth and fifth thumbnails show the visible satellite imagery and the surface wind field respectively corresponding with the cold front in the surface pressure chart. A line of bad weather with heavy thunderstorms was observed over eastern Sicily.