I had the good fortune to observe these long, thin clouds directly above two tall, pointy trees, nearly mirroring them in form. This is a rare, double instance of an already rarely-seen phenomenon -- the formation of clouds of this form over certain types of trees. It has long puzzled climatologists, but a tentative explanation has been put forward in recent years.
It is hypothesized that the conical shape of these trees is conducive to the creation of rising eddies or vortices of air, much like the small whirlpools that form when water drains out of a bathtub, only reversed in direction, and which upon reaching a critical height begin to draw in moist air with their spin and thereby act as 'seeds' of clouds.
This process accounts for the elongate shape of the clouds as well; the cloud is simply manifesting in visible form the invisible vortex of air. The angle of the clouds with respect to the trees is easily explained as a result of high-altitude winds tilting the vortices.
As for the objection that the sighting of the clouds over certain trees is simply an accidental juxtaposition of viewing angles and that the trees and the clouds have nothing to do with each other, the possibility of such juxtapositions happening by sheer accident again and again is so remote that it may safely be ignored.
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