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To: RegulatorCountry

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.


19 posted on 12/17/2008 9:27:01 AM PST by hattend (Sarah Palin has run a fishing business, a city, and a state. All Obama has done is run his mouth.)
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To: hattend

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.


20 posted on 12/17/2008 9:38:51 AM PST by RegulatorCountry
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