What are these weird clouds?

June 3, 2024 4:34 PM

While flying home from a conference, a friend saw these weird clouds or weird cloud-adjacent arcs. What are they? Alternatively, does anyone have a Google search term I can put in to learn more? If it helps, the flight was east from Phoenix.
posted by eleanna to Science & Nature (9 answers total)

Response by poster: I should have added that it is the sky-colored arcs circled in red in one of the pictures. My apologies.
posted by eleanna at 4:37 PM on June 3

I don’t have a great answer for you but you should know that you’re broadcasting the full name of whoever’s sharing these photos with iCloud Photos.

That said, I think they’re just cirrus clouds that look strange due to an optical illusion.
posted by potent_cyprus at 4:56 PM on June 3 [2 favorites]

Yeah, I think they're just clouds that look darker because they are less dense/less able to reflect light.
posted by coffeecat at 4:58 PM on June 3

Wispy clouds reflecting light differently. Check out the Cloud Appreciation Society.
posted by theora55 at 6:59 PM on June 3 [1 favorite]

They look quite similar to lenticular clouds. Lenticular clouds are formed by the "wave" of the atmosphere as it rises and falls thanks to a mountain or mountain range below. I can't quite see in those photos if there might be something like a mountain or mountain range below that might be causing them.

Several examples - some quite similar to yours. More examples. More detailed explanation with diagram & examples.
posted by flug at 7:49 PM on June 3 [1 favorite]

Lenticular clouds was my immediate reaction as well... the ground below looks pretty flat though, so no idea what would cause a little patch of lenticulars like that?
posted by caution live frogs at 8:48 PM on June 3

My first thought was lenticular clouds also. In "Ground School" for becoming a pilot they teach you to watch for lenticular clouds as a visible sign of undulating air currents. I never became a pilot but did begin the process many, many years ago.
posted by forthright at 9:04 PM on June 3 [1 favorite]

As people have said these are lenticular type clouds. The “mountains” in this instance are the cumulus clouds below.

Clouds form when air rises, expands, and cools to saturation. The tops of the fluffy cumulus clouds are the boundary between saturated air below and unsaturated air above. The layer of air where the lenticular clouds are forming is rising and moving faster horizontally than the air below. When that layer moves over a rising cloud it gets bumped upward just enough to reach saturation but there’s not enough moisture or instability for those clouds to grow vertically.

The clouds appear darker because they’re composed of ice crystals rather than water droplets and because they’re closer to the same elevation as the camera (water droplets and ice crystals reflect more light back toward the source, and forward, than off to the side).
posted by plastic_animals at 3:14 AM on June 4 [5 favorites]

Those are sky manta rays.
posted by sixswitch at 5:19 AM on June 4 [2 favorites]