They are a common part of our environment, varied, and (like everything else in science) they have names. Lenticular clouds can form when different air layers are moving (fast) in different directions. Sometimes they may vaguely resemble flying saucers but mostly to those blessed with vivid imaginations. Texans keep reporting clouds as UFOs; more than 56 reports in past month - seattlepi.com Maybe a spacecraft could hide inside of one. It's not like we can fly into them and check. Lenticular clouds have winds that are perfectly capable of taking airplanes apart. No-fly zone. If there is interest we can learn some of the names . Fun! or post your pretty cloud photos.
An interesting cloud fact for me. You know there is always some amount of water vapor in the atmosphere. Humidity. Can't see it because we don't have infra red eyes (on balance, probably a good thing) But we can see clouds because the water forms droplets or ice particles. Refract or absorb visible light. In a typical cloud, 1% of the water content is visible and 99% remains as vapor. Wxman, agree/disagree?
Thanks Tideland. Altostratus not quite wrapping up into lenticular. Still, a no-fly zone for flyers aspiring to die of old age. Mountains really mess with airflow, thus pressure gradients. thus condensation. Are there not any glider pilots here? They know best how to read the air.
I'm not sure of the exact percentage (probably variable), but much of the water does remain in vapor phase in clouds. Another interesting fact is that cloud droplets remain in liquid water phase even in ambient temps well below 0 degrees C ("super-cooled water droplets"). About 50% of cloud water remains in the liquid phase at -15 degrees C. This is the most favorable temp for dendrites (the "huge" snowflakes that rapidly accumulate during a snow storm).
Building on WXMAN, the Weather Channel has been talking a lot about the need for particulates (eg; meteorite dust) to form nucleation sites for droplet formation by providing a spot for freezing. Recent hail storm I decided to see what I could see under the microscope. Saw more organic stuff ...the prominent thing here is pine pollen which I had no idea but found pictures of pine pollen on the internet for comparison. Had a hunch it was pollen. Just an iPhone thru the lens picture of the melted hail ...it was ice on the slide but melted revealing the solids.
There was a study conducted several years ago (2008) showing that rising particle concentration (from anthropogenic pollution) initially causes precip rates to rise and max out at a certain particle concentration before falling off at very high particle concentrations. Apparently the competition for available water vapor in clouds precludes the water droplets from getting big enough to fall as precipitation at very high particle concentrations. The Hebrew University of Jerusalem - Division of Marketing & Communication
Brought to mind about clouds and UFOs, and not distracted by close ups of tree sex: has anyone noticed that all the Sasquatches died the day they invented cell phones? Now that everyone has high quality cameras with them all the time, there are no sitings at all.
I've heard that the pea soup fog of London past was the result of the particulates from all the coal burned for heating.
Too many particles spoiling the condensation process was new to me! Supercooled water droplets a re (another) substantial aviation hazard. In the pine pollen picture, notice that each looks like three balls, but at least one has the 'Mickey Mouse' layout. In a botany class we were presented with a page-long description of pine pollen morphology. It was impenetrable. I crossed it all out and wrote "looks like Mickey Mouse head". Oddly I had expected the professor to be more impressed by that simplification.
Upon closer examination, altostratus lenticularis sno nuff. Rime ice is a nice (horrifying) example of supercooled droplet accretion: Photos: 10 Feet of Rime Ice at Mount Washington! - The WeatherMatrix Blog Weather Blog Forms on the upwind side, in case that's not intuitive. You can imagine how it might make an airplane wing less 'wingy'
It was a bit surprising to see a Seattle P-I article about lenticular clouds without an example commonly visible from Seattle -- Mt. Rainier. Here are a few examples from the other P-I photo series: Mt. Rainier scenic railroad reopens for summer - seattlepi.com Mount Rainier in February 1977. (Grant Haller/P-I) Photo-803183.6815 - seattlepi.com Lots more here: mt rainier lenticular clouds - Google Search
