Appearance of frightening but beautiful Dragon’ Nest shows that summer isn’t ready to say good-bye just yet.

It’s almost time to flip the calendar over to September, but the weather in Japan shows no signs of being ready to let go of summer. This weekend, temperatures and humidity both remained extremely high in Japan’s eastern Kanto region (which includes Tokyo), even after sundown.

At dusk on Sunday, there was still enough moisture in the air for a gigantic, towering thundercloud to form north of Tokyo, which had people in and around the capital looking up to the sky as the sun slipped towards the horizon as they filmed and photographed the dynamic view.

While it’s not an official meteorological term, many people in Japan call this kind of weather pattern a “Dragon’s Nest,” after the swirling vortex of clouds that surround the titular fortress of classic Studio Ghibli anime Castle in the Sky (also known as Laputa). And while we have to rely on myth and legend for reports that dragons breathe fire, we know for sure that this real-life Dragon’s Nest spits lightning.

From certain angles and sufficient distance, the cloud looked tranquil, and some of the flashes almost bring to mind the gentle blinking of the lights on top of a skyscraper.

But as night went on, the lightning became increasingly intense, especially once the clouds drifted farther north from Tokyo.

https://twitter.com/isseiOS/status/1033655030564311041

Sadly, no anime castle was found floating in the center of the nest of cumulonimbus clouds, but thankfully, no damage was reported from it either.

Sources: Weather News, Jin, Otakomu
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