Crazy Central PA Wave Clouds Timelapse 3/26
UPDATE: Here are some panoramas that I created using Panorama Maker 4 Pro software. This first one is a 360-degree panorama, my first. I'm working on a Quicktime VR movie which I'll post to this page tonight.
Here's a panorama from AccuWeather HQ:
This is a 180-degree panorama looking Southeast from my back porch:
ORIGINAL POST: Because of the nearby mountains, we have wave clouds periodically here in State College, Pennsylvania, home of AccuWeather HQ [Google Map]. Yesterday afternoon, rain attempted to move into our area but relative humidities were extremely low (15-30%) - see maps on the Forums. What happened (as the rain attempted to fall into the dry air) were really interesting-looking ragged wave clouds, underneath the higher cloud deck. I took this timelapse video from the AccuCam (this is about 30 minutes crushed down to 40 seconds).
What you're seeing here is how wave clouds work - the clouds themselves are not moving along with the wind, they are continually being recreated as the wind blows through them. The wind goes up over the mountain and (since warm air becomes more humid) creates the cloud, then it falls due to gravity and dries out. (I know, it would have been cooler if I hadn't forgotten to move my mouse off the screen).
I also took over 100 pictures, the best of which I have uploaded to our Photo Gallery, including the ones below. I will be adding panoramas tonight.
*Requires Windows Media Player. You may have to "Save Target As" to download the file to your computer before playing it.
