Combining Clouds
cloud
The remarkable cloud spotted from the summit of Mount Washington in New Hampshire on Monday morning was a hybrid combination of two rare cloud species: the lenticular, and the Kelvin-Helmholtz wave cloud.
Lenticular clouds form when air is forced upward by mountains or other orographic features, rising and cooling below its dew point. The then-saturated air forms a cloud, which erodes as soon as air begins to sink downwind. Temperatures at the time were in the lower 20s, with westerly winds gusting near 50 mph.
Monday morning’s cloud formation near Mount Washington was extra special because it also had a curlicue appendage protruding above it, a curled finger reaching up to the sky. This was a lone “Kelvin-Helmholtz wave cloud.” They ordinarily come in strings of waves, yet this one was content on its own.
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