Mystery In The Sky, A Few Viewer Photos

The weather has been exceptionally quiet this week, and I’ve had the opportunity to fill my weathercast with different topics like viewer photos.  On Thursday,  there were a few unique pics I came across, and both left me scratching my head for a minute or two.  The first was this stunning shot at Sugarloaf Mountain by extremely talented photographer Jamie Walter.
Sugarloaf
At first glance, it looks like an amazing image of the mountain over a calm pond.   The highlight of this photo is a unique feature in the sky showing an interesting ripple.  It took a minute for my brain to figure what was happening here. Just flip the photo upside down (or right side up) at it becomes clear.
Sugarloaf2

Jamie Walter is one of the most creative photographers around,  and I’m looking forward to viewing more of his photos this winter at Sugarloaf.

The second series of photos were sent to me by viewers asking me to identify odd dark lines in the clouds.   It had me puzzled for a while because they sort of look like airplane contrails, but they’re dark.  Also, the cloud deck yesterday was at 18,000 feet which is too low for airplane contrails to form.  Contrails typically form over 25,000 feet.
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After looking into it, it became clear, we are looking at shadows from the airplane contrails above the cloud deck.  If a cloud layer forms below the contrail, and the sun is behind the contrail from your perspective, the contrail can cast a shadow onto the lower cloud deck.
Shadow
From Community Cloudy Atlas

So in both cases, mystery solved. I could get use to having such a quiet weather forecast!  If you have any photos to share, I’d love to see them.  You can contact me via Facebook here. https://www.facebook.com/CharlieLopresti/ , Twitter here https://twitter.com/CharlieWGME  , or through email clopresti@wgme.com

Have a great weekend!

Charlie Lopresti

About Charlie Lopresti

Charlie makes up the "Weather Part" of CBS News 13s evening edition. A native New Englander, he grew up enjoying the area's exciting and sometimes wild weather.