Lenticular Mammatus Clouds

[Joey Ketcham]

Our local TV Met labled these as Lenticular Mammatus Clouds, very rare thing, I can't actually find anything on Lenticular Mammatus clouds..

 

[Glen Romine]

Originally posted by jketcham
Our local TV Met labled these as Lenticular Mammatus Clouds, very rare thing, I can't actually find anything on Lenticular Mammatus clouds..

Probably because there is no such cloud classification.

Glen

 

[Aaron Kennedy]

LoL. I make my own classification of mammatus clouds...

such as:
mammatus grandis
mammatus saggis

Aaron

 

[Jeff Lawson]

Were the clouds rapidly swirling around a center point? If so, I'd take them as clear indication a horrible fate was about to befall the Earth. Were there any evil sorcerers in the vicinity? How about alien spacecraft?

Seriously, though, it just looks like turbulent gust front stuff. If such is rare, I've got some photo stock to sell!

 

[Rockwell Schrock]

Here is another picture of the same event. Very very cool:

http://www.wunderground.com/wximage/viewsi...ICK#slideanchor

 

[Mike Johnston]

The lenticular clouds are evidently caused by the effect of gravity waves. While there doesn't appear to be a classification of Lenticular Mammatus - I'm not sure there is any reason why, if the gravity waves were propagating through atmospheric conditions that give rise to mammatus, there couldn't be such an effect.

Note: see also the last couple of posts in today's Talk thread, as the gravity waves from the E OK / W AR storms were noted. These waves appeared to be visible on the visible satellite image prior to sunset.

 

[Joel Wright]

Those remind me of elevated convection north of a warm front. Sometimes you can get some pretty interesting cloud formations if there's no stratus blocking the higher clouds. Intense warm air advection at 850mb is my guess for the cause.

 

[Robert Dewey]

I actually seen clouds identical to that during a lake effect snow event :?:

 

[Joey Ketcham]

Originally posted by Glen Romine+--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Glen Romine)</div>

<!--QuoteBegin-jketcham

Our local TV Met labled these as Lenticular Mammatus Clouds, very rare thing, I can't actually find anything on Lenticular Mammatus clouds..

Probably because there is no such cloud classification.

Glen[/b]

I didn't think there was, since I've never read about any clouds called that or heard of it. Here's a link to the story with that term being used:

http://www.koamtv.com/index.php?action=new...s.view&num=2662

 

[Mike Hollingshead]

I know what those clouds are called. Those are year 2005 clouds there. I've seen them several times so far They have some other less familar names like. Why the hell am I a chaser 500 miles from home today-clouds. Can I borrow your gun-clouds. Bang your head on the asphalt-clouds. Look at me you stupid stupid chaser-clouds. You wanted a supercell? hahahahaha-clouds. Local law enforcement going to have a hayday today-clouds. Sorry, lol. There is nothing I dislike more about chasing than seeing those damn things in my target any distance from home.

 

[Joey Ketcham]

Originally posted by Mike Hollingshead
I know what those clouds are called. Those are year 2005 clouds there. I've seen them several times so far They have some other less familar names like. Why the hell am I a chaser 500 miles from home today-clouds. Can I borrow your gun-clouds. Bang your head on the asphalt-clouds. Look at me you stupid stupid chaser-clouds. You wanted a supercell? hahahahaha-clouds. Local law enforcement going to have a hayday today-clouds. Sorry, lol. There is nothing I dislike more about chasing than seeing those damn things in my target any distance from home.

LOL...

 

[Blake Allen]

On the six o'clock news on KSNF the met said they asked the NWS if they had a name for the clouds, and when the NWS said they didn't the met said he came up with a name like "mammatus nimbostratus" or something like that...

here's some more pics:

http://www.ksntv.com/news/coolwxpics/default.asp

Blake Allen

P.S. Can someone explain or point to a link explaining what exactly a gravity wave is with regard to weather?

 

[Jeff Snyder]

Originally posted by rdewey
I actually seen clouds identical to that during a lake effect snow event :?:

To me, those clouds look like a saturated layer atop a very stable layer. I've seen these during all times of the year, though they seem more common in spring and fall. I've always imagined that they're caused by a cloud deck atop a cold, turbulent layer. They just always look like waves on water, which tells me they occur at the vertical interface of two very different airmasses (e.g. cool, stable boundary layer beneath a saturated, highly sheared layer). I don't know for sure though -- just what I've always thought.

 

[Mike Johnston]

Blake Allen wrote:

P.S. Can someone explain or point to a link explaining what exactly a gravity wave is with regard to weather?

When these observations were mentioned today, I looked at some sources and found the following to be the most understandable:

http://www.theweatherprediction.com/habyhints/64/

There is evidently some cause and effect between gravity waves and this lenticular cloud effect. I also noticed places where mammatus were linked to wave-like process -- is there some correlation here between the gravity waves generated by the MCS in E OK/ W AR today, and these observations in Pittsburgh and Joplin? I couldn't say, but it looks suspicious enough to speculate.

 

[mikedeason]

To tie this in a bit with the upcoming 25th anniversary of the Grand Island tornadoes, a very similar display of clouds were seen over teh western part of the city on the evening of June 3, 1980:

[Broken External Image]:http://www.gitwisters.com/albums/thestorm/sky.jpg

http://www.gitwisters.com//gallery/view_ph...thestorm&id=sky

Regards,

Mike