Speakin of the Devil…
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Ha! Just two days ago in a post here, I mentioned the weird and wonderful Horseshoe Vortex in an assertion of how the speed and thus instability of the weather systems racing thru the Upper Sonoran Desert creates rarities perhaps a bit more often than elsewhere.
All day at work I kept an eye on the fast moving clouds. Velum, and short lived Lennys seemed spaced evenly thru out the altocumulus stratiformus and floccus. The drive home from work was a visual tease of lennys forming up but just as fast being torn and scattered by the winds. So to the backyard with camera in hand to possibly capture a cap cloud or velum or lenny before the winds have their way with them. Just barely completing a 360 degree scan of the sky, and I see it. More than once I’ve looked right thru a Horseshoe Vortex. They are not big. There is nothing to high lite them in the sky,,except..the curve, the upside down U.
This one I noticed early on and was able to photograph it at stages. So below are 3 pics. The 1st is the vortex early on, just beginning to curve. The 2nd shot is very close, its best effort. It has its legs and is symmetric and is still mostly ” together”, or stable. The 3rd shot shows the deterioration of stability, Its no longer symmetrical and filaments are being thrown off. A few rotations,perhaps 10 seconds or so, and it was not a recognizable Vortex. Total time was at best a minute, but it made my day.
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Good shots, Michael. When you say ‘rotations’ I am not clear what is meant. It does not look like it is rotating in as much as it remains an upside down U; so is it the cloud that is rotating along its (curved) length (perhaps not); or is it the horizontal vortex that is rotating, its ‘upper arc’ (*) being cool cloud, its lower arc warmer invisible air?
There is a bit of an explanation here:
http://www.weatherscapes.com/album.php?cat=clouds&subcat=horseshoe_vortices(*) The Cloud Collector’s Handbook, Gavin Pretor-Pinney, 2009, p71
Not many cloud books mention the horseshoe. -
Wing tip vortexes (and an F15 (after the three dolphins) showing off upside down and so low you might hit it with a stone)
http://www.isomax.photos/action.There is in the cloud literature a picture of a propeller driven (four engine?) plane with vortices but I can’t find it. This one is more dramatic
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wingtip_vortices#/media/File:Airplane_vortex_edit.jpg -
Having a devil of a time signing in here. As I come in I am taken to automatically being sign in. Problem is..as soon as I go to anywhere else ( forum, home page ), I’m not signed in there. So I have to keep signing out then back in until I am given the manual sign in red button, which works at keeping me signed in everywhere. .anyway..
hygge, Ive seen these weirdos come apart and there is some kind of force involved. They come apart like a spinning top losing its energy, its balance. There is wooble, a shuddering, shape becomes chaotic, filaments go off in various directions and dissipation takes it toll until all gone. So I thought the energy was in the spin of the vortex. If its in ,,invisible air..oh well. I’ve never seen it then. I’ve only seen its effect on the horseshoe.
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I do recognize the problem with signing in Michael. I have found that signing in and then immediately a refresh of the page will help. Just try. Another thing is that being not signed in the links to the gallery and the forum show the status of the site some 5 days (or now already maybe more) older. The team knows about it, so I hope they can solve it.
A horseshoe is indeed a weirdo the way you describe their coming and going Michael, very visual. I just once saw a horseshoe close enough. I took the picture quickly with the cloudspotter app (the phone is by hand) and after getting my camera it was gone with the winds. So no observations of the way it developed. Nevertheless. This one was very thin and rectangular.
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