Wherever one is in the world there’s something that will always offer delight, interest and a bit of a weather forecast as a bonus. I’m speaking of clouds.
I have written about clouds before in this place but the reason that I just have to share another post about clouds with you is this image:
Earlier this month, a peculiar ring appeared in the clouds over Warwickshire, England. James Tromans, who photographed the formation, asked what might have caused it. Clearly, this was time for some cloud detective work.
The ring was actually more of a curve, or a ‘U’, as there was no other half to it. It appeared to consist of regular lumps, or lobes, hanging down from the underside of a cloud layer. We wondered if this layer was an Altostratus, but off in the distance to the right of the image there appeared to be showers, like those produced by a storm cloud. This suggested that the cloud layer might in fact have been part of the huge canopy that spreads out at the top of a Cumulonimbus storm cloud.
Sometimes, to the rear of a storm, lobes of cloud known as
1. Could ‘mamma’ be involved? Spotted over Wilton, Wiltshire, UK, by William Saberton,
mamma can be seen
hanging from the underside of the canopy (see image 1). There certainly was a general appearance of mamma in the cloud layer. But could some of these mamma cloud lobes have arranged themselves into this strange, regular curved formation? It seemed unlikely.
There was something decidedly unnatural about the cloud’s appearance – as if it were man-made. Then it occurred to us that the photograph was looking towards Coventry Airport. Might this cloud effect have been in some way caused by an aircraft?
As planes fly through clouds made of ‘supercooled’ water droplets, they can encourage these extremely cold droplets to freeze and fall below, leaving behind a gap, known as a dissipation trail, or ‘distrail’. Such formations are often seen in
2. Or was it to do with an aircraft ‘distrail’, like this spotted over Newcastle, Australia, by Jillian De Martin (Member 12801)?
straight lines where planes ascend or descend through the cloud. But they can also appear in circular shapes when one is flying in a holding pattern as it waits to land (see image 2). James’s cloud wasn’t quite a distrail, but we felt we were getting close.
It was then that we recognised the regular spacing of the lobes. These sometimes appear below aircraft condensation trails (see image 3). They are caused by the interaction between the two swirling vortices produced by the wings. As these rotate in opposite directions in the wake of an aircraft, the two turbulent flows interact and combine to form a periodic pattern of turbulent downdrafts. In the right conditions, they appear as lobes hanging below the condensation trail.
3. The clue was in the turbulence lobes that can appear hanging from an aircraft contrail. You can see these in this strip of contrail spotted over the Smokey Mountains, US, by Gary Smith.
This explained the formation. It was caused by an aircraft, which happened to be flying just above the base of the cloud layer as it turned in a holding pattern above the nearby airport. The plane’s condensation trail was hidden within the cloud layer, but the lobes of cloud descending below it, caused by the turbulence from its wings, appeared extending below the layer.
Phew! With that cleared up, we could finally relax once more.
Turbulence lobes beneath the contrail of an aircraft in holding pattern over Hampton Lucy, Warwickshire, UK, by James Tromans.
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How very interesting and hope I’m not the only one to think so.
I am always amazed at how things turn out. Call it serendipity or what!
Because, as much as I love publishing a daily post in this place, not infrequently I think what on earth am I going to find to write about; or republish!
As it was yesterday morning. Not only did I have a heap of things to do around the house but also other ‘office’ work that had to come first.
Murat Şahin climbs onto his dusty motorbike and holds his breath as he turns the key, hoping the engine will start. His trip is important because he’s going to feed more than 100 dogs in the forest of Aydos in Istanbul, Turkey. Dozens of cats living along the rocky coastal walls are waiting for him too.
Watch Murat Feed the Animals
Murat’s mission is important to him, it’s a spiritual calling in fact, and he is deeply devoted to serving the hungry animals as you will see in the uplifting video below.
Murat does take some animals to the veterinarian for spay/neuter, but it isn’t always feasible. Some of the animals are wild, and without a car, he can’t bring a trap or transport them easily. He also doesn’t have the funds to do sponsor spay/neuter on a wide scale on his own.
“Murat has never asked for any help,” fellow volunteer Anna Efe explains. “He has always used his own money and collected food at a restaurant and a local canteen. Also, some butchers were giving him leftovers free of charge. But this year the situation has changed. The butchers stopped giving leftovers for free and, on top of that, Murat’s old motorbike was stolen. It was his only way to deliver food to the forest dogs.”
Though Murat did manage to find a very low-priced bike to replace the stolen one, the replacement bike frequently breaks down. In fact, it broke down immediately after the filming of the video on this page.
Better Days Ahead
The Harmony Fund charity, based in the U.S., is working on a surprise for Murat. The group is attempting to raise funds to purchase a reliable, used car for Murat’s rescue work and would be shared by Murat and his fellow volunteers working together as an authorized rescue team in Turkey. The car would have several advantages over the bike including carrying larger quantities of food, transporting animals to the veterinarian and safer transportation during bad weather.
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If anyone reading this post can find it in their hearts to make a donation, then this link on the Harmony Fund website is the place to go. You can specifically nominate that your gift goes to Murat out in Turkey. (And Jean and I have made a modest donation to Harmony to be passed to Murat.)
She died a short while ago, at 21:22 GMT/UTC on Monday, November 14th.
That is 9:22 pm British time on the same day as the moon’s closest distance to our Mother Planet since 1948.
Or to find some poetry in the timing of the end of my mother’s life, she died 10 hours to the minute after that closest moment of the moon’s passing, that was at 11:22 British time this morning.
This photograph of the moon was taken last night from here at home in Oregon at a few minutes after 10pm.
My mother was born Elizabeth Foreman and after the death of our father, Frederick Handover, in 1956, she subsequently married Richard Mills.
My sister, Elizabeth, and I were born in 1944 and 1949 respectively. My mother and Richard were parents to our half-sister Eleanor, who was born in 1959.
Our mother was an incredible woman and her death is truly the end of an era for the family.
For the rest of my years, I will look up at the full moon and remember my mother’s amazing life.
Dan, my Best Man, at the wedding of Jean and me, November 20th 2010. My mother is between Dan and me.
Dear people, you will understand why I will be taking a few days away from blogging.
According to NASA, the full moon that rises on Nov. 13 will be the closest one to Earth since 1948. If viewing conditions are clear, the moon will not only appear 30 percent brighter, but also 14 percent larger. While the nighttime viewing is supposed to be spectacular, the true closest approach of the supermoon will take place on the morning of Nov. 14 at 8:52 a.m. EST.
Just how special is this super supermoon? Humanity won’t get another show like this one until Nov. 25, 2034.
The moon turns precisely full on November 14, 2016 at 1352 UTC. This full moon instant will happen in the morning hours before sunrise November 14 in western North America and on many Pacific islands, east of the International Date Line.
For those of us on Pacific time that equates to 0852 PST.
So the balance of today’s post will comprise the republication, with permission, of a recent essay on The Conversation blogsite.
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Supermoons are big and bright, but not as rare as the hype would suggest.
Senior Lecturer and Associate Department Head for Undergraduate Programs in Astronomy & Astrophysics, Pennsylvania State University.
As an observational astronomer who teaches students about the behavior of the moon, I’m thankful for anything that inspires people to go out and look at the sky. For me it’s second nature to pay attention to the moon; when my son was born, I would take him out at night to observe with me, and one of his very first words was “moon.”
But I have mixed feelings about what’s being billed as the upcoming “super-supermoon.” Many astronomers do not like using the term because reports overhype the factors that make certain full moons unusual. Most of what you’ve likely read has probably misled you about what you can expect to see on Nov. 14 and just how rare this event is. Beautiful, yes. Worth looking up for, definitely. Once in a lifetime… that’s a bit overblown.
The moon’s phases as it revolves around the Earth. Orion 8, CC BY-SA
The moon’s cyclical phases
Just about everyone is familiar with the moon’s changing appearance as it goes through its phases from crescent, to half-illuminated (first quarter), to gibbous, to full, and then back through gibbous, to half-illuminated (third quarter), to crescent, to new.
This pattern occurs because the moon orbits the Earth. When the moon is between the Earth and sun, it’s a new moon, and you don’t see it that day. When the moon is on the opposite side of the Earth from the sun we get a full moon as the sun’s light illuminates almost its entire face. The complete sequence of phases takes about the same amount of time as it does for the moon to orbit the Earth once – just about a month.
As the moon makes its monthly trip around our planet, it travels on an elliptical, not circular, path. Every object in the solar system orbits like this, including the Earth around the sun; over the course of the year, the Earth is sometimes closer to the sun and sometimes more distant. Same for the moon – sometimes it’s closer to us and sometimes farther away.
The changes are proportionally not large; at “perigee” (the closest it gets to the Earth) the moon’s approximately 10 percent closer to the Earth than at “apogee” (most distant point on its orbit). Over the year, the moon’s distance from Earth varies from around 222,000 to 253,000 miles.
The moon’s orbit is elliptical and changes over time. Rfassbind
The time it takes the moon to go from perigee to perigee (about 27.3 days) is shorter than the time it takes to go through a complete set of phases (about 29.5 days). Because these timescales are different, the phase at which perigee occurs varies. Sometimes perigee occurs when the moon is full, but it is just as likely for perigee to occur when the moon is in the first quarter phase, or any other. Whichever phase the moon is in when it’s at perigee will be the one that looks largest to us here on Earth for that month.
At perigee, the moon can appear 14 percent larger and 30 percent brighter than an apogee full moon. But this is complicated by the fact that our eyes play tricks on us and convince us the moon looks larger when it is near the horizon than when it is higher in the sky. Every full moon will look big and bright whether it happens at perigee or apogee.
So what’s a supermoon?
The first time I heard the phrase “supermoon” was in 2011, and someone had to explain the suddenly in vogue term to me. People were using it to describe the full moon that happened to occur within an hour of perigee in March of that year. The moon’s perigee distance also varies a bit, and March 2011 was the moon’s closest perigee of that year.
A 2013 supermoon as seen from Ireland. John Finn, CC BY-NC-ND
This was a somewhat rare event – a full moon occurring not just at perigee, but at the closest perigee of the year. But many people got the impression that this was an exceedingly unusual event, and rushed to see and capture images of this supposedly ultra-rare moon. Depending on how closely you require the full moon to occur to perigee in order to call it a supermoon, though, these events happen at least roughly once a year, and often more frequently.
Which brings us to this month’s much ballyhooed “super-supermoon.” News stories are hyping the upcoming full moon as a once-in-a-lifetime viewing opportunity. It’s true that the Nov. 14 full moon is the closest since 1948, and the next time the full moon will be closer is in 2034.
But this month’s full moon is only 0.02 percent closer – a mere 41 miles! – than the March 2011 supermoon. These tiny distances make no noticeable difference in the moon’s appearance.
Get out there and enjoy this supermoon! AP Photo/Charlie Riedel
Please do go out and observe the November full moon. If you are good with photography, try to document that the moon does appear larger than the other months this year. Just be aware you’ll have other virtually equivalent opportunities to do so pretty much every year for the rest of your life. So don’t worry if you miss it. You can catch the supermoon next time around.
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Fingers crossed our local weather will enable Jean and me to view this moon and I will try and photograph it.
If any readers also get to see this moon do let us know your thoughts and feelings.
And there’s another special moment regarding the moon coming up in a week’s time! (You’ll have to be patient for I’m not saying anything more just now!)
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Stay warm, stay safe and don’t read too much news! 😉
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Another set in a week’s time.
It is from The Cloud Appreciation Society’s November newsletter and I’m taking the liberty of sharing the particular news item with you.
November 2016
By: Laura S. November 20, 2016
Watch Murat Feed the Animals
“Murat has never asked for any help,” fellow volunteer Anna Efe explains. “He has always used his own money and collected food at a restaurant and a local canteen. Also, some butchers were giving him leftovers free of charge. But this year the situation has changed. The butchers stopped giving leftovers for free and, on top of that, Murat’s old motorbike was stolen. It was his only way to deliver food to the forest dogs.”
The Harmony Fund charity, based in the U.S., is working on a surprise for Murat. The group is attempting to raise funds to purchase a reliable, used car for Murat’s rescue work and would be shared by Murat and his fellow volunteers working together as an authorized rescue team in Turkey. The car would have several advantages over the bike including carrying larger quantities of food, transporting animals to the veterinarian and safer transportation during bad weather.
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This photograph of the moon was taken last night from here at home in Oregon at a few minutes after 10pm.
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Once again, huge thanks to Larry and Janell for passing these on to me.
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Forget what’s going on around us this week. These pictures tell us what is really important!
Learning from Dogs 