Unusual cloud formation - eye in the sky

KAGY

Hi all,
here's an unusual cloud formation that is currently over longford (10:30 22/09/12)
Moving slowly eastwards and relatively stable, starting to dissipate now about 20 minutes after I first noticed.

Local conditions are cool and crisp, this morning there was a lot of fog lying in the "valley" beside Cairn Hill.
MULLINGAR(A 10:00am) E 01knot CLOUDY 5ºC 95%RH 0.0mm 1021hPa

Is it just local condition or the centre of the H now over ireland?




In case the links to the google plus photos are temporary, here's a link to the post. https://plus.google.com/photos/101035929204139873643/albums/5790933431983554017

maquiladora

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallstreak_hole

Nice pics

Iancar29

Damn .. Maq got there before me! haha , lucky catch indeed!

KAGY

So not a UFO then! Looks like I'll have to blame something else for the headache and missing memories! And where did all those empty bottles come from

Su Campu

Very nice example alright. It's a layer of altocumulus stratiformus, and the 1200 Mullingar metar has it at 14,000 ft.

The GFS sounding for that area shows a saturated layer at around that level, with the temperature of around -12 °C, which is perfect supercooled territory. It could possibly have been a plane on descent to Knock that punched through it and caused the freezing to occur.

Su Campu

Actually, where exactly did you spot it? The most likely cause was this Ryanair flight 806 from Knock to Stansted, which I've shown climbing through FL140 (14,000 ft) somewhere over Castlerea at 08:44 UTC (09:44 local). With a general eastward drift of the cloud layer you would have seen this over Longford a short while later.

Deep Easterly

It seems to have been large enough to be picked up on the visible satellite images as well (not 100% sure if it is the actual fall streak hole though or just a shadow of a UFO)

9.45z image:

Min

If there had been more cloud to the north and west of it, we could have pretended it was a hurricane

KAGY

Su Campu wrote: »

Actually, where exactly did you spot it? The most likely cause was this Ryanair flight 806 from Knock to Stansted, which I've shown climbing through FL140 (14,000 ft) somewhere over Castlerea at 08:44 UTC (09:44 local). With a general eastward drift of the cloud layer you would have seen this over Longford a short while later.

Here's the approx direction of the photograph as far as I can tell. It was nearly directly overhead about 10:50 (from memory)

cyclops999

Passed over Athlone this morning

Harps

Looks like another one over the Irish Sea today picked up by the NASA satellite

Su Campu

That's a great image there. Aircraft inbound from the north of Angelsey, descending turn then turning west onto left dowwind for runway 10. It would have descended and levelled off at the level of that cloud (12-14,000 ft), punching that track into it, and then descended further out of it just before coasting in over north Co. Dublin. Amazing example, never seen something like that here before.