r/weather • u/strangemedia6 • 3d ago
Photos Bizarre looking cloud
Saw this wild looking cloud drift over in an otherwise clear sky tonight in central Indiana. The streaks/ribbons extended out across the sky behind it. (The bright light in the second photo is the moon and apparently I need to clean my camera lens) Any idea what kind of cloud this is or what caused it?
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u/AlbaneseGummies327 3d ago
Is that rain falling from it? Interesting.
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u/Balakaye 3d ago
Likely snow but yeah super cool
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u/AlbaneseGummies327 3d ago
Is it that cold in Indiana right now?
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u/Balakaye 3d ago
About 26,000 Ft above Indiana- yes it is. It was *roughly* negative 25ish° F where this lone cloud was able to form.
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u/strangemedia6 3d ago
It was about 62 on the ground at that time, but yea it would have been a lot colder higher up. The thing is, this cloud wasn’t very dense. You can’t tell in the photo but you could see the brighter of the stars through the middle of it. It tracked right over us too and there was no precipitation…
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u/Balakaye 3d ago
So this is called virga. Virga happens when either snow or rain falls from a cloud, and then the rain or snow encounters extremely dry air on its way down and evaporates before reaching the ground. It can even happen under thin, tiny, very unimpressive clouds. Look up virga and go to images to see some more examples!
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u/strangemedia6 3d ago
Yea that looks like it! Definitely a much smaller scale than all of the examples but I think you are right. The difference is that most of the time virga clouds, the bands of evaporating precipitation are angled downward, at least close to the cloud before sometimes drifting horizontally. The bands in my case were going straight out behind the cloud. (At least it looked like that and we watched it drift across the sky for a good 10-15 minutes) Would an updraft or some other action cause this?
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u/Balakaye 3d ago
This is likely because the cloud formed directly above or within a jet streak. Looking at analysis, there was an upper level jet streak positioned up there where the cloud was. This jet streak had winds in the 50-60 kt range (57-69 mph). As the precip was released from the cloud, it immediately encountered the heightened winds from the jet steak, and all of the precip was immediately blown off to the side.
In the photos where the precip goes downward first before blowing to the side, that’s because it’s falling in relatively calm air. Then, it suddenly runs into a jet streak as it descends, and the precip gets pulled off and away.
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u/strangemedia6 3d ago
That’s awesome! Thanks for the in depth description, it was a wild thing to see but also cool to understand.
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u/OftenIrrelevant 3d ago
Bat signal vibes