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Area on 1996 Dec 3
This is an AVHRR 3 channel color composite of south-central Virginia. AVHRR channels 1, 2, and 4 were colored red, green, and blue, channel 4 was reversed. The sun is about 29 degrees above the horizon slightly west of due south. A number of jet contrails are visible as thin lines with shadows on one side. The features of interest appear as a cluster of holes in the clouds in the left center of this image. A possible explanation is that they are caused when jets penetrate a super-cooled cloud layer and initiate glaciation, that is the freezing of the super-cooled cloud droplets. Glaciation in clouds, when started, often spreads outward forming a hole in the clouds with the frozen ice crystals hanging down in a curtain (as view from beneath). If anybody was lucky enough to catch a picture of this particular occurance I would be interested in adding them to this page. |