Mt. Rainier puts on a show!

Oceanblue7 said:
Seq, those are really neat pics. I am tripping out on the lenticular clouds, they do look like Close Encounter of third Kind lol
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Yeah they are really neat to look at :)

Babyblue said:
wow!

Is it the heat from Mt. Rainier that causes it?
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This is what causes it:

Those are called "lenticular clouds" They're caused when the air flow is just right so when it flows over Mt. Rainier, the air gets pushed upward where it cools and condenses into clouds. Depending on how smooth the flow is, you can get some amazing clouds formations as we've seen so far today. Here is more information on what causes them from an earlier blog entry.

It's usually a sign of rain within 24 hours because typically the moist flow that precedes a storm around here is the perfect set up for these clouds.
 
sequoias said:
Yeah they are really neat to look at :)



This is what causes it:

Those are called "lenticular clouds" They're caused when the air flow is just right so when it flows over Mt. Rainier, the air gets pushed upward where it cools and condenses into clouds. Depending on how smooth the flow is, you can get some amazing clouds formations as we've seen so far today. Here is more information on what causes them from an earlier blog entry.

It's usually a sign of rain within 24 hours because typically the moist flow that precedes a storm around here is the perfect set up for these clouds.
Click to expand...

Or snow for that matter! :lol:
 
Those are some kind of capillatus type clouds. I seen them the day they showed up, from my backyard.
 
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