Posted on 12/17/2008 7:42:08 AM PST by BGHater
HOUMA — Some people saw Jesus. Others blamed UFOs.
Harkening to the popular Journey song, a wheel in the sky appeared over Terrebonne and Lafourche parishes early Saturday morning, a seemingly perfect hole punched though the sheet of clouds blanketing the sky.
Locals who phoned and e-mailed the Daily Comet and The Courier this weekend about the strange cloud formation did agree on one thing: “It was the weirdest thing I’ve ever seen,” said Raceland resident Sandra Ledet, who shared some spectacular photos with the Daily Comet.
Shawn O’Neil, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Slidell, identified the phenomenon as a hole-punch cloud.
“They don’t occur all that often, and they are usually caused when an aircraft intersects altocumulus or cirrocumulus clouds,” he said.
Altocumulus are high-altitude clouds, usually white or gray in color, that occur in sheets or patches. Cirrocumulus also are high-altitude clouds made up of supercooled liquid water droplets and ice crystals.
An airplane passing through a mixed cloud layer while ascending or descending could disrupt the delicate coexistence between the ice crystals and the supercooled liquid water droplets, causing a hole to be punched in the sky like many residents saw Saturday, according to the National Weather Service.
Small-scale atmospheric movements, both up and down, caused by the jet stream, could cause a similar phenomenon.
Some seemed doubtful, when the phenomenon was explained to them, that something like a jet could cause the mystical “hole in the sky” they saw Saturday.
“My daughter called me and she said, ‘Mom, look at the sky,’ and I went back in, got my camera, and started snapping,” Ledet said. “It completely circled my house and then disappeared. It was too big, too round and too low to be caused by a jet.”
Annette Klingman of Houma said her husband called her and told her that there was a “strange thing outside,” and she should get her camera.
“I was in my pajamas, and I went outside and wondered what I was supposed to be looking for,” she said. “But then my son saw it, and it was so huge. It was awesome. It was beautiful. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
Sandra Ledet of Raceland sent this snapshot of the hole in the clouds she spotted Saturday from her home.
I’d be standing under that, undoubtedly that’s been engineered to let Bernanke drop megadollars.
Fail.
Bump for Sarah!
This being the second instance in a couple of weeks, sort of begs the question of how unusual this actually might be. But, I’ve been a weather geek for most of my life, and do not recall ever seeing this sort of thing until the last several years. I’ve had a few meteorology courses, and to my mind, the two or three cloud formations present in the photo are not possible, side by side, naturally, let alone within a near perfect circle.
A jet didn’t do this. Jets have been around for over half a century. It’s got to be some sort of military tech. That weatherman out in Colorado might not be the nut he’s been made out to be.
"In Before The Journey Reference"
His website is down. Must be looking for work again.
Im looking through a hole in the sky
Im seeing nowhere through the eyes of a lie
Im getting closer to the end of the line
Im living easy where the sun doesnt shine....
Maybe Art Bell will take pity and give him a gig. You’d think the notoriety would be good for money somewhere.
It also looks like something headed off to the right, with the outer edges of the cirlce following, somewhat, in the direction of what left it.
Updraft.
lolz
Most who look at this, and question the official cause if any is given, are probably thinking along the lines of that Bearden guy and his “scalar magnetics,” like the previously mentioned weatherman, Scott Stevens. There’s a whole internet “industry” built up around this sort of thing. Photos such as this feed the speculation. It’s not naturally occurring, and a jet didn’t do it, imho. Beyond that, you’re heading into territory that has been thoroughly tinfoiled.
Al Gore farted? Tax him.
Yep - lenticulars are pretty unusual in most areas, but not around here. We get ‘em regularly above the mountains. The upper level winds can do some pretty spectacular stuff with them.
A jet may have disturbed the area to cause some sinking of air but the most likely cause is just some cooler air above the cloud deck descended through it. The air warms as it falls and that dries the cloud portin out. It’s a reverse thermal.
I saw these things a lot in Illinois especially after an Alberta Clipper descended over the plains. Cold dry stable air, cloud cover above the inversion and then mixing at the inversion level. The coolest one we saw actually formed right before our eyes as we were outside doing a rawinsonde run.
The cloud formations within the near perfect circle don’t indicate a thermal inversion to me. Observers reported that the cloudcover was fairly low altitude, too.
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