Cloud Stalker: sky watch/Fair-weather clouds

Thursday, October 16, 2008

sky watch/Fair-weather clouds

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Fair Weather Cumulus Clouds
Fair weather cumulus have the appearance of floating cotton and have a lifetime of 5-40 minutes. Known for their flat bases and distinct outlines, fair weather cumulus exhibit only slight vertical growth, with the cloud tops designating the limit of the rising air. Given suitable conditions, however, harmless fair weather cumulus can later develop into towering cumulonimbus clouds associated with powerful thunderstorms.

Fair weather cumulus are fueled by buoyant bubbles of air, or thermals, that rise upward from the earth's surface. As they rise, the water vapor within cools and condenses forming cloud droplets. Young fair weather cumulus have sharply defined edges and bases while the edges of older clouds appear more ragged, an artifact of cloud erosion. Evaporation along the cloud edges cools the surrounding air, making it heavier and producing sinking motion (or subsidence) outside the cloud.

Source

This will be my 17th Sky watch, wow. I look forward to this all week. This weeks pics are from Sunday, my son and I went on a nice long bike ride which ended up in a new park they built out side of our neighborhood. I got a lot of cool shots if you scroll down a little you will see a couple I posted.
I just Love the sky!

Thank you for stopping in Happy sky watching!
Jess
Cloud Stalker

4 comments:

Dewdrop said...: Great shots, Jess. I especially love the last one.; October 16, 2008 at 5:36 PM
Patty said...: Very nice...I love all of those; October 19, 2008 at 11:16 PM
Tom said...: Hi Jess
Great post as always... love the pictures and of course the information....

Excellent post; October 20, 2008 at 3:41 AM
Jeannelle said...: Great shots of the big billowy clouds, and the amazing sun rays! Interesting info about the clouds, too! Greetings from Iowa.; October 20, 2008 at 10:39 PM

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HAIL (3/4 inch or greater)

Hail can cause significant damage to your vehicle, break windows and damage roofs of homes and businesses.
Hail can cause significant bodily injuries such as broken bones and even blindness if wind blown.
Softball (4.5 inches) sized hail was reported in Lake Wales, Florida on March 30, 1996.
Haildrifts, up to four feet deep of dime to nickel sized hail, occurred in low-lying areas near Zephyrhills, Florida on January 29, 1997.
Hailstones the size of softballs can fall at speeds faster than 100 mph

supercell

Supercells derive their rotation through tilting of horizontal vorticity (an invisible horizontal vortex) caused by wind shear. Strong updrafts lift the air turning about a horizontal axis and cause this air to turn about a vertical axis. This forms the deep rotating updraft, the mesocyclone.
A cap or capping inversion is usually required to form a downdraft of sufficient strength. The cap puts an inverted (warm-above-cold) layer above a normal (cold-above-warm) boundary layer, and by preventing warm surface air from sinking too far, allows one or both of the following:
Air below the cap warms and/or becomes more moist
Air above the cap cools
This creates a warmer, moister layer below a cooler layer, which is increasingly unstable (because warm air is less dense and tends to rise). When the cap weakens or moves, explosive development follows.
In North America, supercells usually show up on Doppler radar as starting at a point or hook shape on the southwestern side, fanning out to the northeast. The heaviest precipitation is usually on the southwest side, ending abruptly short of the rain-free updraft base or main updraft (not visible to radar). The rear flank downdraft, or RFD, carries precipitation counterclockwise around the north and northwest side of the updraft base, producing a "hook echo" that indicates the presence of a mesocyclone.