© Pierre Verlhac
Crolles, Isère, France
Latitude: 45° 17' 6'' N
Longitude: 5° 52' 59'' E
17 August 2014 0000 (Local Time)
Camera direction: towards E
Image P/S code: P.1.7
Image I.D.: 4322
CL = 0, CM = 0, CH = 2
The photograph shows an excellent example of separated, rounded tufts of Cirrus cloud, resembling the dabs of a painter's brush on a canvas, which identify it as Cirrus floccus. Trails are often present beneath the tufts of cloud.
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During this warm day in late summer, spectacular Cirrus floccus clouds formed.
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The main cloud in this photograph is Cirrus floccus. It consists of separate rounded tufts (seen at 2 and 3), from which trailing streamers of ice crystals (seen at 4 and 5) fall to a lower level. Some of the cloud is arranged in parallel bands and is of the variety radiatus. In the lower third of the picture, there are Cumulus humilis and fractus clouds.
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In this relatively close-up view, trailing streamers of ice crystals (seen at 1 and 2) fall to a lower level from rounded tufts of Cirrus floccus (seen at 3 and 4). The clouds are white with no shading. In the lower part of the picture, the cloud elements are arranged in parallel lines and are of the variety radiatus.
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The Cirrus has the appearance of cumuliform tufts (1, 2) that are trailing streamers of falling ice crystals (3, 4), and therefore the Cirrus is classified as floccus. More distant floccus at 5 is mostly in the shadow of the foreground clouds. Winds aloft were SW due to a stationary trough about 200 km to the west. Winds increased from 10 m s-1 at 500 hPa to 25 m s-1 at 250 hPa, all from the south-west. Thus, there was SW vertical shear, and the ice-crystal fallout trailed from the Cirrus tufts. Surface winds were light.
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(NB. Actual date in January estimated)
Flocculent elements with soft, fibrous outlines are seen at 1. The elements at 2 are characterized by hard outlines, but appear to be at the same level as the more fibrous elements at 1. A patch of banded Altostratus is seen low in the sky. Central Oklahoma was on the northern side of a quasi-stationary ridge of high pressure aloft.
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