Unique Sierra Wave cloud sighted over Reno, NV
From my friend Mike Alger at KTVN-TV Reno, who writes:
I’ve been on the air doing weather for KTVN-TV for over a quarter of a century, as you might expect (and to channel Anthony), people send me things. Especially pictures of the clouds. And some of them are quite good. But the one Jeff Houk sent me Sunday morning might be the coolest ever. I’ve seen some very nice Standing Lenticular clouds (we call them Sierra Wave clouds locally) before, and the colors make this one pretty spectacular in its own right. But that perfectly carved out hole in its middle was something that I’ve never seen before.
Full sized: https://wxmanreno.files.wordpress.com/2015/03/spaceship-lenticular.jpg
I thought it might be fun for WUWT readers to give their own theories on what is causing it. I have a pretty good idea, and so as to not give it away, after you post you theory below, you can link to my explanation found on my weather blog at mikealger.net. Here’s a direct link to the relevant posting: (http://mikealger.net/2015/03/18/explaining-the-hole-in-the-cloud/)
Enjoy!
Mike Alger
Chief Meteorologist
KTVN-TV
Reno, NV
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Why does every American TV and Radio network have a ‘K’ in their acronym?
ralfellis
There were very, very few radio stations worldwide when the first radios were being sold – and those that did broadcast had little power. So, almost no need for regulation.
But! Like everything federal, the bigger stations – as they got more powerful wanted (needed) to restrict other stations from broadcasting on the same AM band – no FM yet of course, and, what little FM was broadcast was low-power direct-line-of-sight stations only because FM uses higher frequency waves.
So, the big stations needed a way to restrict small stations from using their frequency, and the small stations already broadcasting needed a way to make the bigger ones did not keep buying ore and more power to wipe out their own signals. So, they both bought into regulation and licenses.
All radio stations east of the Mississippi could keep their W _ _ names and their night-time longer-range broadcast power levels. The oldest only needed 3 characters. WSB (Atlanta) and WSM (Nashville for example). WABC WCBS WNBC were already using “company” four-character names, and could keep them. The very few radio stations already running west of the Mississippi could keep their old name (WOAI San Antonio, WTAW Bryan-College Station are examples.)
Every “new” station west of the Mississippi had to register new frequencies and use a K _ _ _ call sign.
As part of the registration, if your “daytime” radio frequency was used by somebody else at night with a long-range station, you had to power down your antenna at sunset to eliminate skipping and double reception. At daylight, you could tune back up the power to get a clear signal locally. The big long-range station had to tune their power down at their daylight hour to avoid clashing your signal.
Explain to me WDAY in Fargo North Dakota well west of the Mississippi.
WDAY was licensed in 1922, a year or two prior to the W/K prefix convention being adapted by the FRC (predecessor to the FCC) It’s not the only exception. The W East and K West is a guideline, not an absolute rule. By international treaty, the USA has W, K, N and part of the A’s for it’s callsign prefix allocations. Some others are G and M for the UK, AX and some V’s for Australia, CF-CK and some V’s for Canada, F for France, and etc.
I was just dicking around on this one.
See: https://images.search.yahoo.com/yhs/search;_ylt=AwrTccfipQlVj0IA1n4nnIlQ;_ylu=X3oDMTB0aWRtNmFyBHNlYwNzYwRjb2xvA2dxMQR2dGlkA1lIUzAwMV8x?_adv_prop=image&fr=yhs-mozilla-001&va=lenticular+clouds&hspart=mozilla&hsimp=yhs-001
The photo was taken from the Tree in Larry Niven’s Rainbow Mars. We’re looking at the surface of Mars, upside down.
It looks to me that there is significant condensation and subsequent lifting occurring in the air layers above the base of the lenticular cloud. The non-laminar cumulus clouds can be seen above the lenticular clouds. This is adding additional lift at the peak of the wave and drawing drier air up through the base of the lenticular cloud, creating the holes in the clouds. The development of the strato-cumulus cloud deck above the lower lenticular clouds can be seen in the 3 photo series.
That is a humulous cumulous I-have-no-cluous.
It was clouded over and raining here but someone saw auroras in Portland, Or yesterday.
http://www.solarham.net/pictures/update/mar18_2015.jpg
the hole is where all that “missing heat” went!
enuf jokes here’s the try:
something like the right temperature gradients in the upper sky layers, with the right saturation limits near dewpoint, combining with the right wind shear factor (or better said: absence of it) so that the “natural” lenticular cloud formation airstreams can show themselves (i suspect a slight updraft in the center and a small downwards flow around it with a very slight spin of the whole cloud?
i can’t help but it looks a lot like a sattelite picture of a hurricane, however then with the same parameters acting on a very subtile scale in a lenticular. The atmospheric conditions would then be right to see these very subtile airstreams “at work”
that’s the guess in non meteorolic terms
an IPCC guess: “with the current peak of CO2 cloud formation is instantly affected which will cause more or less of these formations in the future. it’s a proof climate change is real and that denying it is a serious crime” hahahahahahaha
The great shape shifting space lizards have arrived! Bow down to your lizard overlords!