Cloud Shadow?

[Stephanie]

Pictures taken Saturday morning about an hour before sunrise. The first picture looked like a blue horseshoe shape. While I was waiting on sunrise I kept watching it and it looked like the horseshoe shape turned white and "broke off" even though it was already "off".

Is this a shadow it's casting on the white area of the sky?

 

[Mick West]

Very nice photos. This is a fallstreak hole. The cloud in the middle is the fallstreak, and it is actually falling. The white area is a hole in the horizontal cloud layer, you are just seeing the sky through the cloud.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallstreak_hole

 

[Mick West]

This video shows something similar:

 

[Stephanie]

Very nice photos. This is a fallstreak hole. The cloud in the middle is the fallstreak, and it is actually falling. The white area is a hole in the horizontal cloud layer, you are just seeing the sky through the cloud.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallstreak_hole

OK, makes sense. I have daytime photos of fallstreak clouds. Didn't occur to me that's what it was.

Thanks!

 

[Stephanie]

View attachment 10468

Thanks alot for the response.

 

[Stephanie]

Is this considered a fallstreak?

 

[Mick West]

Is this considered a fallstreak? View attachment 10469

No. That's just a regular hole in the clouds, with a ray of sunlight. You can see the cloud layer is a thicker stratocumulus deck - which does not make fallstreak holes. Instead there just happens to be a few holes in the layer.

Fallstreak holes form in higher thinner layers, where the cloud is supercooled (below freezing but still liquid).

 

[Stephanie]

No. That's just a regular hole in the clouds, with a ray of sunlight. You can see the cloud layer is a thicker stratocumulus deck - which does not make fallstreak holes. Instead there just happens to be a few holes in the layer.

Fallstreak holes form in higher thinner layers, where the cloud is supercooled (below freezing but still liquid).

Cool. Thanks for your time!