Comments on: Lenticular clouds over the Boulder foothills

By: Kempton

Kempton — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 04:19:22 +0000

For a trailer on a 32 minute documentary of a soaring distance record using the lenticular clouds, go to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YAKYNAi0P7Y

FYI, if you want to buy the full 32 minute HD video, go to: http://hdsoaring.blogspot.com

And thank you to Sarah, whomever you are , for citing my video in my blog in the first post above. I shoot HD video from the cockpit of my gliders (not hang gliders) for education and instruction on using wave clouds (lenticulars) for cross country soaring flights. In the video we discuss planning, preparation and tactics for flying 1,200 miles in one day without an engine. The world record is almost 1,900 miles in one day set in Argentina a few years ago. That’s from SF to Chicago with no engine in one day! Yet there is very little research on these, other than a few crazy glider pilots who either want to break records, or in another highly specialized project, to go to 90,000 in wave produced by the Polar Vortex: http://www.perlanproject.com/

For me, this is the best science there is!

By: Larry

Larry — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 14:18:56 +0000

@ Spectroscope asked -
Do they give you rain or hail? Or just float on by?

These clouds are formed exclusively when you have a high and reasonably laminar (smooth) wind flow over something big enough to cause a region to exist where cloud can form. The technical background involves the air speeding up and an associated pressure drop to get around the obstacle, but the key is that the temperature drops below the dew point in that reagion. The cloud appears to be stationary but is actually VERY active-forming on the leading edge and dissipating on the trailing edge of the visible cloud.

I don’t recall EVER seeing any sort of precipitation from a lenticular cloud…I’m not sure that that is possible, given how they are formed, but I’m open to be surprised, too.

By: stevesliva

stevesliva — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 23:47:04 +0000

Climbing magazine just had some news about the Devil’s Thumb:
http://www.climbing.com/news/hotflashes/extreme_headpoints_in_co_and_ny/

Climbing that overhang you see in your photo turns out to be really difficult. Go figure!

By: Chris

Chris — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 15:39:28 +0000

Every once in a while you can see some (small) lenticular clouds off Mount Greylock here in MA. It’s uncommon but not unheard of and sometimes they’ll post pictures in the Lifestyle (!) section of the local paper.

By: mike burkhart

mike burkhart — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 14:57:54 +0000

Yes these clouds are sometimes mistaken for ufos another thing mistaken for ufos I think is secret aircraft (I’ve had an intrest in aircraft in studying I came to this conclusion) in the 50s there was reserch in saucer shaped aircraft in fact the first report in 1947 that started all this may have been a flight of flying wings another type of aircraft reserched In the late 80s there were reports of triangle shaped ufos in Europe at the time the f117 at the time top secert was being deployed to nato air bases I think these people thought the f 117s flying to these airbases were ufos I konw some may disagree with me but this what I think is just one rational thing ufos could be

By: Stephen

Stephen — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 14:53:16 +0000

I saw a lot of those when I lived in Boulder too. Here’s a great shot of clouds rising over a mountain that I took in Estes Park.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/wmgobuffs/2989328861/

By: CJSF

CJSF — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 12:41:17 +0000

One thing that surprised me after moving to Florida was that there are lenticular-like clouds here quite often. They form over the top of towering cumulonimbus clouds, presumably in the same manner as those forming over foothills and mountains. However, they are quite small. Occasionally I’ve seen them relatively isolated in the sky, but I assume they are forming in the same manner.

CJSF