Photos of Clouds and Skies (That you took yourself)

A tangent arc at sunset. Photos were taken at 17:25 official sunset was 17:20 pacific time. Bakersfield California, 1/28/17.

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My nephew took this photo.
He got a job at MSP airport. He fuels the planes.
(bending the rules here slightly)
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Some regularly spaced ripples on the back edge of Storm Doris at Woolacombe in Devon. And some contrails and a paraglider for good measure.

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Steam cloud
Cumulus mediocris homogenitus :)

https://www.wmocloudatlas.org/homogenitus.html
Clouds may also develop as a consequence of human activity. Examples are aircraft condensation trails (contrails), or clouds resulting from industrial processes, such as cumuliform clouds generated by rising thermals above power station cooling towers. Clouds that are clearly observed to have originated specifically as a consequence of human activity will be given the name of the appropriate genus, followed by the special cloud name “homogenitus”. For example, Cumulus cloud formed above industrial plants will be known as Cumulus (and, if appropriate, the species, variety and any supplementary features) followed by the special cloud name homogenitus; for example, Cumulus mediocris homogenitus.
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Did some looking into the term you quoted Mike and it looks like it, along with Contrails has just been added to the Cloud Atlas in the last few months, one thing that I always think of when seeing images like the one above and also the one used in the Cloud Atlas, is all the times that TV media when talking of industrial pollution use shots of cooling towers billowing steam into the air as a visual shorthand for 'nasty chemicals'. I think these new clouds are going to have a bit of a perception issue.
 
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Did some looking into the term you quoted Mike and it looks like it, along with Contrails has just been added to the Cloud Atlas in the last few months, one thing that I always thing of when seeing images like the one above and also the one used in the Cloud Atlas, is all the times that TV media when talking of industrial pollution use shots of cooling towers billowing steam into the air as a visual shorthand for 'nasty chemicals'. I think these new clouds are going to have a bit of a perception issue.

See discussion here:
There Are No New Clouds, Just New Latin Classifications

- Mick
 
Nice example of how clouds can look drastically different in colour depending on the lighting. Photo taken heading east with the evening sun low behind (and to the left of) the car. Even small fluffy cumulus clouds look almost black while the more distant ones are bright white.

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Even small fluffy cumulus clouds look almost black while the more distant ones are bright white.
It's one of this things that you simply don't notice and yet happens quite often. A few days ago someone asked me about a "odd small black cloud", pointing it out in the sky. It was just a cloud like this - low cloud shadowed by some distant cloud bank.
 
It's one of this things that you simply don't notice and yet happens quite often. A few days ago someone asked me about a "odd small black cloud", pointing it out in the sky. It was just a cloud like this - low cloud shadowed by some distant cloud bank.
Yes this one was on a day with lots of towering convective clouds, heavy downpours interspersed with sunshine. Made for some good cloudscapes, but the contrast in colours here caught my attention.
 
Cumulus mediocris homogenitus :)

I'm not sure if this is another Cumulus mediocris homogenitus, or a natural cloud that is coincidentally near the same refinery as the cloud in my last post. This time the vantage point is in the hills east of the cloud (the earlier cloud was taken about the same distance away west of the cloud. As I got closer to the cloud, the shadow was actually about a quarter mile SW of the refinery, and I couldn't see any steam rising from the refinery. So maybe just a coincidence that the only cumulus for miles around just happened to be close to the refinery?

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Nearly straight edges.
Over LAX airport, today, 8pm.
 
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A couple of sunset chemtrails over the western hills of Lower Hutt, Wellington..... they were better 10 minutes earlier, but I couldn't stop!

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Quite a striking wave pattern this evening.

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Panorama showing the extent of the pattern:

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And a little while later, around sunset, looking eastwards. There very sharp edge to the cloud is visible in the distance: it was mostly clear in the early evening and then this rippled cloud came over from the west with a very defined edge to it.

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This was the flight that left the distrail. It had only just taken off from Heathrow on the way to Madrid:

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Although the altitude says 4,700ft there that is quite delayed. The tracklog on Flightaware shows that at the time it created the distrail (about 15:58:30) it was at about 3,200m (10,500ft).

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I'll try not to spam the board with too many MT pics but the sky is constantly changing here. So much to see compared to tranquil CA.

Some bubbly mammatus:

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and a "dry" thunderstorm. No rain reached the ground...at least where I was.

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A squiggly contrail...image.jpg

And the same area like 2 minutes later:
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I have come to the conclusion by intuition, and observation, that these occur when RHi of the surrounding air is just below 100%, and the 'core' of the contrail is just above. x The plane also needs to be a 'big bugger' x. Edit: It _helps_ if the plane is 'big bugger'.
 
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I have come to the conclusion by intuition, and observation, that these occur when RHi of the surrounding air is just below 100%, and the 'core' of the contrail is just above. The plane also needs to be a 'big bugger'.
Not exactly correct. Medium-sized planes, like E170 can produce these squiggly trails too:

Source: https://youtu.be/cqd6sJnQWN4

It all boils to the RHi of the mixture of exhaust and surrounding air at the distance behind the plane, where it got entrained into the wake vortices. The vortex-entrained trails became "insulated" from further mixing and last longer than non-entrained parts. If RHi of the entrained mixture is above 100%, the vortex-entrained trails will eventually end up by the Crow instability mechanism, otherwise they would dissipate before the vortices break up.

Edit:
Let's rephrase this: the squiggly trails are visualisation of the wake vortices and their interactions. The wake vortices are always present behind the plane, the trails just make them visible. For how long they are visible depends on RHi of the entrained mixture of exhaust and ambient air. If it is above 100%, the vortices (and trails) will last till they are broken by the Crow instability. If it is close but below 100%, that is the mixture reached the saturation point, but then was diluted before it was entrained in the vortices, the trails probably will last enough to get squiggly but will dissipate before the vortices break up.
 
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Not exactly correct. Medium-sized planes, like E170 can produce these squiggly trails too:

Source: https://youtu.be/cqd6sJnQWN4

It all boils to the RHi of the mixture of exhaust and surrounding air at the distance behind the plane, where it got entrained into the wake vortices. The vortex-entrained trails became "insulated" from further mixing and last longer than non-entrained parts. If RHi of the entrained mixture is above 100%, the vortex-entrained trails will eventually end up by the Crow instability mechanism, otherwise they would dissipate before they the vortices break up.


If the surround air is supersaturated too much latent heat is released which breaks up the trail, I think.
 
If the surround air is supersaturated too much latent heat is released which breaks up the trail, I think.
If the surround air is supersaturated too much the resulting contrail will envelope the wake vortices. There still will be more dense trails inside them, which eventually will break up (by the Crow instability) with the formation of contrail pendules.
 
89746A44-7C6D-4BE0-9A6E-D7FB15B8332D.jpeg Back in Cali for the Holiday...took a post Thanksgiving jaunt to Fallen Leaf Lake (Tahoe area) and noticed this irridesence (i dont think its a sun dog but maybe?)
 
Didn't realize it was supermoon time again, I didn't see one silly article leading up to it this year. Has that one fallen out of vogue?
 
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