Feb 4th,2017: Lenticular

A lenticular cloud over Sparks Lake Oregon.



Or a UFO?

MANY sightings of UFOs have now been attributed to "what the hell is this lensticulitis cloud thing you keep raving on about???"

Because they like to form in quiet air over mountaintops, I see lots of lenticulars coming off the Bitterroots. Mount Rainier is famous for its "volcano hat" lenticular clouds, and I wish I'd had a camera the day I saw one shaped pretty much like a human skull minus the eye sockets but including a lower jaw type shape. I've got a HUGE archive search to complete (isolating mineral/geology shots for My Ppl to use for club stuff) and if I remember I'll hit the non-IotD sector with some of my better lenticular clouds--especially if I can find the vivid pink sunrise/sunset ones!

Everything I know about cloudforms, hydrodynamics, thermodynamics, refractions, reflections, and pretty much every other way physics affects our living space I learned reading http://epod.usra.edu/, which I think I found as an image source listed with the archive to the IotD here. That's one of the reasons I love you guys here--you help stuff my brain full of SCIENCE! Bonus points if you're either earworm-hearing "She Blinded Me With Science" or if your brain's playing back the Robot Chicken opening credits, any version. (I can't help it. I just watched ALL OF ROBOT CHICKEN IN LIKE A WEEK. Brain now broken.)

These are my favorite clouds. We're lucky enough to get them over the mountains here in NM, too. This is a great shot.