#2203 "Langmuir Streak Sunset"

In the early days of my meteorological career I would have spotted this deck of cirrus and happily identified baroclinic zone cirrus (BZCI). Satellite imagery was just becoming available via hard copies on photographic paper - the fabled K560. Animation ws achieved by cartoon flipping the hard copies. VHS filming of the hard copies was the next step to make animations of the low resolution imargery. Computer handling of the data was still a dream in the 1980's. This new data in the late 1970's was enough to make me a convert to remote sensing though. Weather was three dimensional and did not arrive as the intersections of circles on Venn Diagrams.

Every line of cloud has a story to tell and I spent my career listening to what the skies had to say. Much of this research was published through COMET in Boulder, Colorado. Some other topics like langmuir streaks in the atmospheric fluid never made it to press even though I discussed the concepts many times. There is so much still to learn.

This sunset sky was from 6:50 pm Thursday September 6th, 2018. I had to paint it for both the colours but also the meteorology. I believe that the banding of the baroclinic zone cirrus results from the same process as Langmuir streaks in water. The tropropause provides the stable layer equivalent to the surface of the water. Distinct bands parallel to the strong winds in the fluid contained by the stable layer reveal the associated vertical motions therein.
I like to think of elongated helical tubes stretched out along the direction of the strong winds which comprise the jet stream. The three-dimensional circulation in these helical tubes interact and the bands of cloud result.

The deformation zone banding results from the other fluid process that I have built a meteorological career around. The warm conveyor belt flowing with the winds of the BZCI is revealed by the larger bands within the relative atmosphere perpedicular to the strong winds. Smaller wavelength bands are gavity waves within the stable layers of the atmosphere. Deformation zones tell a different story of heat and moisture and weather.

I painted the same sunset as it appeared a few minutes earlier in #2187 "Another Sunset Revolution". Sunset skies can change dramatically by the minute. I would paint this same sky again in #2206 "Dark Cherry Sunset" as it appeared about 15 minutes later. The tropical moisture from Hurricane Gordon was the star of these sunsets.

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