Showing posts with label clouds. Show all posts
Showing posts with label clouds. Show all posts

Friday, June 12, 2009

Not a new cloud type - it's just a gravity wave

Yahoo has a news story about a picture of clouds taken by an Iowan woman that is inspiring meteorologists to define a new cloud type. By the way, there is a Cloud Appreciation Society and they are pushing for it.



(Picture from Yahoo and AP)

This looks very much like the gravity wave clouds I saw in Delaware in October, and to many other pictures of undulating clouds which I thought were just called gravity waves.

Thus I thought these clouds had names already.

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Gravity Wave Clouds over Wilmington Delaware yesterday

There were these strange cloud formations over Wilmington, Delaware yesterday around 5pm. There looked like the clouds were large waves with light and dark areas that looked like a frozen undulation across the sky. I recalled that there is a cloud effect called gravity waves and I tried to get a picture or two with my cell phone. Unfortunately the pictures don't give the full effect. You could see many bands of dark and light depending on the direction you looked and the waves stretched from horizon to horizon, it was very eerie. I took two pictures pointed to be next to each other to try to give a sense of the scale.

Looking slightly left (approx west north west)

Looking slightly Right (approx north west)


This youtube video shows an time-lapse example of gravity waves over Toma, Iowa that gives the full effect.



I didn't have the time or equipment to try to capture that much time-lapse motion of our gravity waves clouds yesterday. So many natural phenomena, so little time.