re: Weird Hole-Punch Cloud Today

Doug Holland — Thu, 02 Dec 2010 07:14:46 GMT

Hey Cliff,

It’s awesome to see such a weather phenomenon right in your own backyard and given that it disappeared so quickly I'd imagine this is something seldom seen in the world.

I sent these pictures to pilots @ microsoft, about 350 members of that discussion group, as well as friends in the Civil Air Patrol and USAF and universally the response was "Wow".

If I had been in Kansas, I might have began running in the opposite direction after taking the picture and would definitely have steered clear in a Cessna for sure.

Interesting reading your weather blog http://cliffmass.blogspot.com and I'll have to read your book, The Weather of the Pacific Northwest, and have ordered a copy on Amazon. http://amzn.to/gijEfk.

Regards,

- Doug

re: Weird Hole-Punch Cloud Today

Cliff Mass — Thu, 02 Dec 2010 06:57:54 GMT

.I can tell you exactly what that is. No...not aliens. You had an altostratus deck comprised of supercooled liquid water. A plan probably flew through the deck, causing some of the supercooled water to transition to ice, which helped transition that circular opening to ice crystasl. They in turn started to fall out of the layer, leaving that hole. You can tell it is ice by the soft edges. Called APIPS by some. Here is an article on them: www.scribd.com/.../Chemtrails-Aircraft-Induced-Hole-Punch-and-Canal-Clouds-Inadvertent-Cloud-Seeding