Weird contrail in the sky

Deep Easterly

Anyone notice this right now? 2 contrails, one lying east/west; another from the lying WSW/ENE. The 2 seem to meet/crash :eek: with the first contrail suddenly disappering after this apparent collision, while the other starts to wobble, quite dramically as it heads east! :eek::eek:

tried to take a pic but came out really crap

Ive been watching that the whole way home from town to Lucan, when I got home, it almost looks twisty, like a rocket. I did see a jet way up high also with a blue looking contrail.

I was wondering if it were a rcoket, where would it have come from, would they use them in Baldonnel for anything?

maquiladora

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DzJc3ixDBsA :pac:

Deep Easterly

I got a snap of it but terribly captured as I mentioned. The 'squiggle' after what looks like a collision (in which one contrail seems to vanish) did not really show up at all:

Looking east:

kippy

I am sure someone in the aviation forum could explain this.
Could be two seperate planes at different flight levels or moving flight levels. I believe contrails only occur under certain conditions/flight levels.
One plan could have change FL's and stopped with the contrails.

Su Campu

kippy wrote: »

I am sure someone in the aviation forum could explain this.
Could be two seperate planes at different flight levels or moving flight levels. I believe contrails only occur under certain conditions/flight levels.
One plan could have change FL's and stopped with the contrails.

Exactly what time did the paths cross? I've had a look at Casper.frontier from 8pm on but it showed no planes crossing at that angle, though it doesn't always show all planes up there.

In any case I reckon there's nothing unusual and the first contrail squiggled and dissipated as it encountered stronger windshear as it neared the strong northerly jet over the UK. Further west, 300hPa winds are near calm and contrails will remain unaffected.

Deep Easterly

Su Campu wrote: »

In any case I reckon there's nothing unusual and the first contrail squiggled and dissipated as it encountered stronger windshear as it neared the strong northerly jet over the UK. Further west, 300hPa winds are near calm and contrails will remain unaffected.

So the squiggles I saw were over the UK? Christ, that plane must have been quite high. I quitely guessed, (wrongly) that it was over the east midlands, around Meath or some place like that. :cool:

Su Campu

Deep Easterly wrote: »

So the squiggles I saw were over the UK? Christ, that plane must have been quite high. I quitely guessed, (wrongly) that it was over the east midlands, around Meath or some place like that. :cool:

It wouldn't have been over the UK, but it depends on what angle it was up from the horizon. For comparison, when I look west from Celbridge I can see contrails from planes that are over Connemara, and they're about I'd say 10-20°C above the horizon. Going back to leaving cert trigonometry the distance the plane's ground position relative to you is its Height/Tan(angle above horizon). If we could see the plane on the link above then we'd know its height, and could estimate its position from the angle you saw it above the horizon.

Su Campu

THere was a BA flight 239 to Boston heading WNW at FL360 at around 2030, so it could have been one of the planes involved.

Deep Easterly

The squggles were at a 30-40 degree angle to the east/se approx. The contail extended its way east/west to my north and and NW, although given the upper northerlies it blew down probably from Donegal/Tyrone. S. till, did look very weird when the other more mysterious contrail seem to suddenly dissolve as soon as it clashed with the other. That is a great link you posted, will have good gander at that now so see if I can find some sort of explanation.

Danno

Su Campu wrote: »

THere was a BA flight 239 to Boston heading WNW at FL360 at around 2030, so it could have been one of the planes involved.

What program is this?

Su Campu

It's from the link I posted above

http://casper.frontier.nl/eidw/