Wednesday, August 29, 2012

Interesting Cloud Formations

Late summer has been rather boring around northern Illinois on the weather front. However, a few interesting cloudscapes have meandered across our region. Below are a couple cases illustrated by stills; I'll have another post soon illustrating unique time-lapse movies captured from the Department of Geography's webcam system.

The first set of pictures are illustrative of hole-punch cloud formations that traversed the area on 7/30/2012. I only caught the tail-end of this unique display as I was in the midst of a six mile run with no camera during the height of it.  Luckily, NIU photographer friend, Rodney Neace, was able to capture the beautiful hole-punch formations in their full glory with his iPhone. Hole-punch clouds are a great illustration of a localized human-induced weather modification. Essentially, private and/or commercial aircraft can "seed" the cloud deck, promoting an ensuing hole-punch or trough, as well as fall-streak. A detailed manuscript on these features was published in BAMS in 2010. Below are Rodney's pics, as well as  few of my own.




For those Deadheads out there -- doesn't this look like a Steal Your Face skull? 

Three mature hole-punch formations, as well as a trough, producing a smiley face. This feature was much more definitive about 15 minutes before this shot -- argh! always carry a camera!

The second interesting cloud formation was ahead of a rather unimpressive MCS that moved across the region during the early morning hours of 8/16/2012. I was in the DeKalb wind farm region trying to time-lapse a shelf (which never really materialized) when I noticed unique horizontal vortices embedded within the altostratus ahead of the line. These features only lasted about 3-4 minutes before they kinked up and dissipated. I don't think I've ever seen such a formation documented before ... and I'm truly baffled by their cause.





1 comment:

private guides in buenos aires said...

Amazing pictures! I have never seen such type of clouds before!

pFad - Phonifier reborn

Pfad - The Proxy pFad of © 2024 Garber Painting. All rights reserved.

Note: This service is not intended for secure transactions such as banking, social media, email, or purchasing. Use at your own risk. We assume no liability whatsoever for broken pages.


Alternative Proxies:

Alternative Proxy

pFad Proxy

pFad v3 Proxy

pFad v4 Proxy