Spaceship Visits Mount Shasta
What do those ET's want with our mountain?
What a monster! My wide-angle lens just couldn’t get wide enough.
This lenticular cloud blew in with last night’s sunset, folks—the biggest one in some time. If it was a spaceship, we’re all in trouble.
Technically speaking, weather people call these clouds altocumulus standing lenticularis or ACSL. I can’t figure out why the weather-namers mix an English word with two Latin ones.
Moving on. Wave clouds form when the wind hits a topographic feature, such as a mountain, and get deflected up and over the peak, thereby creating a gravity wave downwind of the obstruction, i.e. mountain. The clouds only materialize when sufficient moisture is in the air, but the wave pattern in the atmosphere may still be there.
That’s why you don’t see airplane pilots (unless they’re gliders) buzzing around tall topographic features like mountains. The downdraft could suck them under. Here’s the thing, folks, lenticular clouds may look like they’re standing still, but they ain’t. These clouds are constantly forming in the updraft and dissipating in the downdraft and sometimes contain winds of 50 knots or more.
So let this be a lesson to you. Don’t fly your motorized vehicle near a mountain. If you’re a glider pilot, though, be my guest.
The same combination of winds and updrafts that allows the cloud to form also provides a rapid lift and a long flight in a glider. Glider pilots spend long hours trying to catch the wave or be the wave.
