Contrail cross over Tasmania and spinning contrails over Victoria

Trailspotter

Senior Member.
There are plenty of contrails today, January 17, 2018, in the satellite images of the Australian states Victoria and Tasmania, including a contrail cross over the latter in the Aqua and Suomi images taken at about the same time (04:35 - 04:45 UTC):
Bass Strait 17-Jan-2018.jpg
https://go.nasa.gov/2FL0QdY

The most likely culprits of the cross are NZ178 and QF64 flights (@TWCobra, have you been caught in the act? ;)):
Screen Shot 2018-01-17 at 19.59.07.png
At first glance, their tracks do not align well with the contrails in the satellite images, but the Himawari-8 time lapse explains why: the upper air appeared to spin around Great Australian Bight, so the trails changed with time both position and orientation. I've made a screen recording of the time lapse (attached), using SLIDER, and also converted it into a GIF:

Source: https://giphy.com/gifs/xUNd9ALQLpFrXgyBQ4

PS This appears to be my 2,000th post at Metabunk :rolleyes:
 

Attachments

  • Himawari-8 Bass Strait 17-Jan-2018 .mov
    48.5 MB · Views: 1,200
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