This Cloud

[redhead]

I just snapped this Cloud at about 5:15 PDT or 1215 GMT and we're here at 49N 122W. It looks like an altocumulous standing lenticular to me, but I was taught that ACSL only formed around mountains and irregular land masses. To the best of my knowledge the nearest land mass west of me would be Vancouver Island and this Cloud was just offshore much close than Vancouver.

So my long winded question is:.Do ACSL form away from mountains and the like?

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[cal40john]

How about this one -
cumulonimbus incus

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cumulonimbus_incus

[jackdale]

Originally Posted by cal40john

How about this one -
cumulonimbus incus

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cumulonimbus_incus

Yep. Classic anvil shape.

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[Snowpetrel]

Yep, see that anvil and beware! Potential strong squalls, lightning, rain and hail near that cloud. You can often steer around them if you carefully plot the way they are moving.

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[barnakiel]

This thing or anything alike seen over open water. Beware. Blown out at the top means sucking air below. If very tall - BEWARE!!!!!

Cheers,
b.

[Shrew]

I don't believe that a Lenticular requires a mtn, however they are commonly found around them. No that is not a lenticular.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenticular_cloud

That looks like a classic thunderstorm/squall shape.

[jackdale]

Originally Posted by Shrew

I don't believe that a Lenticular requires a mtn, however they are commonly found around them. No that is not a lenticular.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenticular_cloud

A lenticular cloud is a lens-shaped cloud that normally develops on the downwind side of a mountain or mountain range. This occurs when stable, moist air flows over a mountain, creating a series of oscillating waves. If the temperature at the crest of the wave equals the dew point temperature, condensation occurs in a lens formation. As the air falls down the trough of the wave, where the temperature and dew point temperature are not equal, evaporation occurs. Thus, a wave cloud, or a series of lenticular clouds, is capable of forming.

https://www.wunderground.com/weather...ticular-clouds

[Mirage35]

Originally Posted by barnakiel

This thing or anything alike seen over open water. Beware. Blown out at the top means sucking air below. If very tall - BEWARE!!!!!

Cheers,
b.

Worked on a project once studying prairie hailstorms - same type of clouds - which included flying small planes around and sometimes above the clouds. The pilots' handbook for the project noted that it was strictly forbidden to fly into the updraft area of the cloud, and that anyone who did so and survived would be fired.

[barnakiel]

Yep. I think we are thinking of the same formation.

When this gets high there will be thunder and at times also hail. They can be seen one at a time e.g. round Cabo Verdes. Super scary even to watch from miles afar.

I have also seen them as a regular feature on fronts, always with associated pleasanties.

At a point before the top explodes and gets blown away by top level air, they look like giant cn cloud but I am not sure they are a cn cloud or something completely different.

Stay away.
b.

[Hud3]

Originally Posted by AnglaisInHull

Worked on a project once studying prairie hailstorms - same type of clouds - which included flying small planes around and sometimes above the clouds. The pilots' handbook for the project noted that it was strictly forbidden to fly into the updraft area of the cloud, and that anyone who did so and survived would be fired.

I was vacationing on the lower Potomac River, near the Chesapeake Bay, and was watching a really big cumulonimbus anvil cloud system develop over the mouth of the river. Lots of billowing black clouds and internal lightning.

Then I noticed a couple of Navy fighter jets flying in low over the water. When under the cloud, they went vertical and flew straight up into the cloud. Patuxent River NAS was not far away, so I suppose that's where they came from.

They must have been bored and looking for a little excitement.

[Mirage35]

The Navy planes can probably go fast enough vertically to outrun the danger: the risk to a small aircraft is hailstones rising (very) rapidly in the updraft - they can go right through an aluminum wing.