Strange clouds - Wellington NSW

[matt]

Some friends sent me this pic of some unusual cloud formations they snapped during their travels through Central West NSW earlier this year.

These were taken just outside Wellington, near Orange, shortly after 1pm on the 15th of October.

Strange cigar-shaped clouds. Almost look like silver UFOs;)

[bojan]

They are UFO's :-)

[Astroman]

The bottom ones that look like UFO's are called Lenticular clouds. Pretty cool hey. Do a search on the description on how they are formed.

[sheeny]

Yep, definitely lenticulars. Always like to look for them, and we see them quite a bit up here near the top of the divide. They are formed when the air passing over a hill is pushed up enough to cause condensation of the moisture in the air. As the air comes down again, the condensation evaporates. They often form these circular "lens" shapes hence the name.

When you observe lenticulars there are two other events to watch for. The first is when the wind direction is square to a ridge, then sometimes you get these elongated lenticular clouds that mirror the line of the ridge.

The second is a line of lenticulars one behind the other downwind. What happens here is the air is pushed up and forms the first lenticular over a hill, then when the air comes down it "bounces" and oscillates between the higher and lower level producing a line of lenticulars downwind from the original hill.

Hey, when there's clouds around you may as well make the most of it;) ...

Al.

[matt]

Thanks Andrew, and great explanation Al:thumbsup:

[Ric]

Fascinating patterns Matt and a great explanation Al.

cheers