The September sky was full of cirrus. There were some mare's tails, gravity waves, and deformation zones. The gravity waves must always be perpendicular to the winds at cloud level just like waves on a lake. Those cloud relative winds are quite different than what we observe form a point on the ground. Subtle variations in the wind that moves the entire weather system along create this interesting patterns. These characteristic cloud patterns are the key to really understanding the weather. The stretching of the cirrus into elongated arcs reveal the deformation process unfolding in the atmosphere gravity waves embedded in the deformation zones reveal which way the cirrus is being stretched. In this case the anticyclonic vortex is almost overhead. The col in the deformation zone was far to the north with the cyclonic circulation beyond that.
I can explain all this if you wish. I have started to do just that on my Art and Science Blog. The first post in that series was from February 18th, 2020 called
"Cloud Shapes and Lines in the Atmosphere".
For this and much more art, click on
Pixels. Thank you.
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