Contrail to Distrail and back again

Mick West

Administrator
Staff member


Full sized (10MB) file: https://www.metabunk.org/sk/Pano_IMG_9847.jpg
Original distrail image: https://www.metabunk.org/sk/IMG_9848.JPG

Just happened to noticed this, and I ran to get my camera. It was only visible for about ten to twenty minutes. It's the best example I've seen of a contrail turning into a distrail, and then back again. This is a panorama stitched from four shots. The contrail was pretty much overhead.

This type of contrail/distrail was first observed in 1921:
 
Not nearly the quality of your photo, Mick, this is from August 5, 2015, 5:34 pm, over Bakersfield, CA. I don't know how long it was in the sky before I saw, but by the time I got my camera out, I only got this one shot and within a minute or 2 the distrail closed up.DSCF1078.JPG
 
I first saw it at 13:32 local (20:32 UTC). Aug-10-2015 Probably 5-10 minutes old, overhead flight west to east. Probably UAL734, same type of plane as the aerodynamic contrail. And based on the altitude, also aerodynamic.

 
Excellent example from a couple of days ago:
20170918-075653-z4t0s.jpg

20170918-075751-bybgf.jpg

I literally ran indoors for my camera, knowing it was not going to last long. Three minutes later it looked like this:
20170918-075907-g0zrj.jpg
 
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