My friend Jan Null from the Bay Area was lead forecaster for the NWS in Northern California for many years. He emailed me today with this interesting photo. – Anthony
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Looking west from the South Bay this afternoon it looked like something had punched a gigantic circular hole through the layer of clouds above the Coast Range. What was being seen was what has indeed been labeled as a “hole punch cloud”.
This relatively rare occurenvce is the result of an aircraft flying through a layer of high clouds that have precisely the right temperatre and moisture. As the jet aircraft flies through the layer it contributes just enough additonal moisture and exhaust particles for the ice crystals in the cloud to grow large enough to fall out as “fall streaks”. This happens in a circular pattern around the path of the jet with a hole in the cloud layer being the result.
Jan Null
Circular cloud patterns can also look tubular…here is another amazing photo.
Morning Glory Cloud
More details here at Astronomy Picture Of the Day
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Radically tubular!
Highlander beat me to the subject of chemtrails, only I’m not pushing the idea. I attended my Representative’s townhall meeting this week, people had the usual questions. Until one gal who looked about like you’d expect went into the whole schpiel about them. My Rep was a lot more patient with her than the crowd was…
The BAE 146 is no longer made and is actually an early 1970’s design of STOL commuter jet. Amazingly it uses neither reverse thrust, it stops on its brakes hence the massive undercart, nor has any leading edge devices.
But oh what enormous flaps it has and when it used to come in here, for many years, we had a regular service, when they wound on the flap what contrails showing the vortices those flap edges produced in the right weather.
Spectacular, as was the approach speed, it almost seemed to hang motionless in the air, although I believe wasn’t that much lower than most other commercial aircraft of it’s size.
And flying into London City on it when they a used a descent angle of I believe of between 6 and 8 degrees was also spectacular especially going past the Green monster, Canary Wharf. Almost as amazing as going into the old Kai Tek, hope I got that right, Hong Kong, airport with skyscrapers looming above you to either side.
And oddly it is also the only aeroplane when I have heard the odd sound, like a handclap, of the wing vortex collapsing as it omes to a halt. If of course that is what it was. But it always made strange noises, on take off the flap gear produced a sound remarkably like a tube [London Underground) train coming out the tunnel as it approaches the platform.
No idea why.
Kindest Regards.
When I was a kid, back in the ’50’s in Southern California, we had some really odd clouds from time to time. That was before the smog just grayed everything out. Seems like the moist air from over the ocean would get caught in the LA Basin and be shaped by the thermals coming off the freeways. We would have tube clouds, stuff that looked like a plowed field, sometimes even a big spherical cloud.
And if I would be allowed to mention this: I always thought it was odd that people use chemtrail instead of contrail, when speaking about the condensation trail left by a jet airplane. Sort of like getting upset with people using a perfectly good word like niggardly, and thinking that it has some racial connotation. English is a beautiful, albeit somewhat confusing, language. A shame when people butcher it.
Janice: The chemtrail people aren’t talking about contrails. Not in the sense that normal people do. They believe that jet engines are spreading chemical X into the atmosphere, for (pick your own) nefarious purposes.
Thanks, Anthony, for allowing one of Highlander’s lunatic outbursts. It reminds me of just what odd bed-fellows we have in any cause or interest.
i don t know what it was , but thats looks really awesome 😉
[no discussions, debates, either side, proof, disproof, just stop the subject] ~ ctm
[snip]
John “the Science Czar” Holdren is an advocate of geoengineering – and worth a read (though not the money) is the book he co-authored in 1977 with Paul “the Population Bomb” Ehrlich (& Mrs. Ehrlich) titled “Ecoscience”. (Note: Ehrlich was already Ronald Reagan’s advicer on enviromental issues)
http://freedomortyranny.com/john-holdren-speaks-on-geoengineering-notice-the-book-ecoscience-on-the-shelf
And though Holdren – a self-appointed “neo-malthusian” – says “geoengineering is expensive” – remember that these people are ready to do anything in order to curb the world’s pop… I mean, the global temperatures…
“Rockefeller Refers to Obama’s Science Czar as ‘Walking on Water’” –
http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/52757
Ps. I just love my goverment – how about you – are ready for the mandatory flu-shot?
Amazing tube cloud formation. Wonder what they look like at ground level. As a landscape photographer here in Australia I’d love to shoot a cloud formation like that. Totally unique.
Looks very nice….
>>>Here is a youtube of roll clouds over Munich.
That’s a different phenomena. That was a weak cold front (a trough-line) pushing through, and generating a line of cloud on its front edge.
The difference is the trough-line moves rapidly across the land, but the standing wave and morning glory are relatively stationary. The latter two are continuously reforming out of the air that passes through them.
And a message to Highlander. These cloud formations are very well-known phenomena that have been studied for centuries. And if you really did live in the highlands, and ever looked upwards, you would see them every other week. And as for the the not-to-be-mentioned high-level formations – I make those every day, chum, and not a drop of illicit material in sight. . 😉
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>>>Like these:
>>> http://www.airliners.net/photo/Virgin-Atlantic-Airways/Airbus-A340-642/1088680/L/
>>> http://www.airliners.net/photo/United-Airlines/Boeing-747-422/0981369/L/
Slightly photoshopped pics, but very nice all the same. Both are producing adiabatic condensation, due to the low pressure region over the upper surface of the wing. It only happens when the air is super-saturated. The first pic is also picking up the colours of a rainbow – produced when the Sun is at an angle of 42 degrees to the water droplets.
Stand on the approach to an airport on a really wet and humid day, and you will see some interesting formations. Like these wing-tip vortices (often from the flaps).
http://images3.jetphotos.net/img/1/3/0/0/11252_1147261003.jpg
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Here is the other method for an aircraft to produce cloud – just speed up and produce a transonic shock wave.
http://www.wildwildweather.com/forecastblog/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/supersonic.jpg
And this one just says “I LOVE FLYING”
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1305/554882755_fc0da8b753_o.jpg
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>>> But it always made strange noises, on take off the flap gear
>>>produced a sound remarkably like a tube [London Underground)
>>>train. No idea why.
The split flaps produced a vortex between themselves, as the gap opened up (just between 5 and 10 degrees of flap). They tried to fix it, but without much success. Besides, the cabin staff liked it, as they knew when to sit down.
The ‘clap’ sound was probably the rear airbrake, which did literally clap together when closed.
Approach speed about 90 kts when empty 120kt when full (short version) – so yes, nice and slow.
Safest aircraft in the sky.
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Yes I never really had much faith in the idea that you could hear a wing vortex collapse: but some claim to have heard it.
Iam afraid it is another tribute to HMG and it’s meddling in business, and the incompetence of a privatised defence contractor who knew nothing of the civil market, and instead of developing a superb design, which after all had modular construction so it could be stretched and altered, and even reengined into a twin jet, quite easily, preferred to pour a vast amount of money into a turboprop design which nobody really wanted.
And which they couln’t sell until they got a savvy finance director who explained that to sell aeroplanes you need to provide the finance and or leasing package too.
Kindest Regards.
There is a contractor in the USA who is trying to convert the BAE 146 into a Aerial
Tanker-the kind that drop slimy red mud on burning trees.If they can get the tankage figgured out should make a good one due to the slow approach speed and handling..
Now for the trails that their name should not be mentioned.I have worked in aviation,
28 years-a Fed contractor one way or another,for most of those.I know a lot of people
in the airplane business.Big and small, jets,pistons and a some ah, ‘other’ ways of
aviating if this were real, there would be some loader,chemical engineer,pilot or
Biffy water changer that would rat on it.There is nothing of the sort.None, end of story.
This would require a conspiracy of incredible and unsustainable proportions,it can’t won’t happen….
A perfect picture with precise composition and lighting and all! Kudos to the photographer!
Those are great pictures. I have never seen anything like that before.
This has been a wonderful thread just for the cloud discussion and links. Now a pleasant sidebar on the BAE 146 makes this is a two-fer for me.
Besides having an inordinate interest in cloud formations common to Airmen everywhere, my late Father was the lead engine rep for Lycoming’s ALF-502, the 146’s powerplant during development and flight testing at Hatfield, and continued his involvement with the engine and airplane until he retired from the company several years later. The plane was perfect for short hauls with a very high max % of takeoff weight as max landing weight and typical fabulously rugged main landing gear. At one time, it was the only airliner that could operate out of Burbank without restrictions because it was so quiet.
I could go on, but I won’t. Thanks again for the thread.
>>my late Father was the lead engine rep for Lycoming’s
>>ALF-502, the 146’s powerplant
Ahh, the infamous Lycoming-502.
The 146 is the only aircraft to have been fitted with a tank engine – the 502 came out of (a derivative of) the Abrams M1 battle tank AGT1500.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honeywell_AGT1500
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John Galt (06:20:28) :
There was no commercial airline traffic for several days after 9/11 and of course, no contrails either. Was there any noticable change in the weather?
Here’s a link to the abstract of a paper in Nature, “Climatology: Contrails reduce daily temperature range” by David J. Travis, Andrew M. Carleton & Ryan G. Lauritsen that looked at that very thing.
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v418/n6898/abs/418601a.html
The weather over the entire US during those three days was unusually clear, allowing a unique opportunity to look at the effects of contrails. They found an increase in the diurnal temperature range of about 1.1 degrees C.
The main conclusion of the paper has since been questioned (http://www.celsias.com/article/9-11-contrail-climate-effects-questioned/). That’s science.
Ed
A mate of mine sent me an e-mail with some photos in it including this superb cloud over what looks like Mt Fuji.
http://i919.photobucket.com/albums/ad34/Jimmy1960/cloud.jpg
Couldn’t believe my eyes. Saw the so-called “hole punch” cloud that day in Santa Cruz, Ca. There were actually FOUR “hole punch” clouds nearly all the same size. I didn’t see that the article mentioned there were FOUR. I took pictures the formations were so bizarre. Odd weather that day too. Extremely hot. I mean extremely hot for a temperate coastal community. Probably just a freak coincidence I am sure.