(Click image to enlarge)
Photographed over Hampshire, UK © John Norris (see it in the gallery)
We’ve all observed the worrying proliferation of condensation trails, or ‘contrails’, criss-crossing our skies in the wake of high-altitude aircraft. They look like man-made scars across the blue. But how many have noticed the much less common but related cloud effect, known as a ‘distrail’?
Short for ‘dissipation trail’, this is not so much a cloud, as a gap in cloud cover. It can appear when an aircraft happens to pass through a fairly thin cloud layer composed of ’supercooled’ droplets. These are in unfrozen, liquid form, even though temperatures are well below 0degC. Water droplets can stubbornly refuse to freeze when there is a lack of air-borne particles to act as nuclei onto which the ice crystals can start forming.
As an aircraft climbs or descends through one of these supercooled clouds, the turbulence of its wake and the many minute particles contained in its exhaust encourage the cloud’s droplets to freeze. This happens when some of the particles act as the nuclei onto which the droplets can start freezing. As the crystals form, they grow in size and fall below. Left behind, is a just gap in the cloud – the distrail.
Current Cloud of the Month:
‘Asperatus’ (June 09)
Previous Clouds of the Month:
Clouds at Night (May 09)
Sundogs (April 09)
Diamond Dust (March 09)
Cloud Streets (February 09)
Crepuscular Rays (Jan 09)
Valley Fog (December 08)
Cloud Shadows (November 08)
Contrails (October 08)
Mamma (September 08)
Kármán Vortex (August 08)
The Summertime Halo (July 08)
The Nor’west Arch (June 08)
Microbursts (May 08)
Irridescent Clouds (April 08)
Northern Lights – Aurora Borealis (March 08)
Ice halos (February 08)
Lightning (January 08)
Roll Cloud (December 07)
Banner Cloud (November 07)
Stratocumulus (October 07)
The Unclassified Cloud (September 07)
Alexander’s Dark Band (August 07)
Fumulus Snail (July 07)
Distrail (June 07)
Altocumulus undulatus (May 07)
Cumulonimbus capillatus (April 07)
Lacunosus (March 07)
Horseshoe Vortex Cloud (February 07)
Jet-Stream Cirrus (Janurary 07)
Altostratus/Altocumulus/Altowhateveritis (December 06)
Anti-Crepuscular Rays (November 06)
Stratocumulus (October 06)
Altocumulus (September ’06)
The Kelvin-Helmholtz Wave Cloud (August ’06)
The ‘Brocken Spectre’ (July ’06)
‘Whale’s Mouth’ (June ’06)
Noctilucent (May ’06)
Cirrus (April ’06)
Cap Cloud (March ’06)
Fallstreak Holes (February ’06)
Nacreous (January ’06)
Cirrostratus (December ’05)
Tuba (November ’05)
Virga (October ’05)
Cirrocumulus (September ’05)
Altostratus (August ’05)
Cumulus (July ’05)
Mamma (June ’05)
Pileus (May ’05)
Lenticularis (April ’05)
To
contribute a Cloud of the Month,
go to our Photograph Submissions
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