Witness To A Special Event
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I was witness to a very special event( imho) during afternoon of April 17 2019. I was able to photograph at least 20 Horsehoe Vortexes manifesting over North Phoenix and points further north. I am still in search of the words to describe the approximate 2 hour outbreak of upside down U. A system had dropped light rain the day before and into the night. By afternoon I was seeing the backside or trailing edge of the system moving off to the east. At around 2:30pm I noticed some cloud formation that told me to keep an eye for Horse shoe Vortex (HV). The clouds were swirling in an area where I had seen HV before. The clouds were coming from the north rather than the west. A few minutes later I spotted a HV. By the time I got the camera on it , it decided to play hide and seek behind a cloud. I took a pic anyway figuring why not? I thought well that made my day, whoopee, back to chores.Around 10 minutes later something told me to take a look and sure enough there was another HV. Photographed it and studied the clouds for a while. Right about where the desert rises into the hills and mountains north of Phoenix seemed the area to keep an eye on. Same area during Monsoon to look for the Pileus. Anyway,they kind of began manifesting themselves on a regular basis. So I post the pictures of them with the time of day the shot was taken. Remember I took various amounts of shots of most of the HV and am posting only one of each with an exception I’ll explain later.
The first one playing hide and seek
2:40
2:49
3:10
3:16
3:18..This shot below is of the same HV as above,3:16, but 2 minutes later. You can see the original one is dying out but below it is a short lived new HV. The main HV is also the same as the one in today’s Gallery listings. Thank you Ian!
cont’d
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Congrats Michael and thanks for sharing. If luck rains down upon anyone to spot one HV (quote from the cloud library of the cloudspotter app) it must have been an overwhelming lot of luck to witness the appearance of such a lot of different HV’s in a short time. Conditions must have been extraordinary well for them to form. It must be tempting to try your luck in Las Vegas.
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Special indeed, Michael — a fantastic series of HV! Holding steady as you must have done to witness such a remarkable event, it makes me wonder if the clouds were using you as the stake for a game of horseshoe tossing. Thank you for sharing these with us here. They reminded me of an odd little cloud formation I caught in Colorado. Both the upper squiggle and its blurry “reflection” slowly dissipated as I watched in wonder.
(And this is when the paredolia kicks in… Now I see a baby elephant in the upper left corner who must have dropped something and is now trotting back to retrieve it from the pond.)
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Keelin and Hans,,Thanks for your kind words ! Phoenix is literally situated in a bowl.South Mtn and White Tanks are the south and west rims of the bowl while the various hills mesas,plateaus and mountains form the north and east rims. When there is weather(besides blue sky) you never know what is going to be mixed up and where its going to be mixed up. I find it fantastic that what I thought was a singular event, HV, I can think as a repeatable occurrence when the physics can and do make them repeatable. May all be witnesses to these strange physical manifestations!
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That seem to be good conditions for developing HV´s Michael. I expect I have to wait for a next HV event over here, having seen one in five years, but I look forward to it.
I wonder what´s on the right bottom of the picture by Keelin. It really looks like one. And it is also mirrorred in the cloudlet below.
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OK, May 7 2019 almost the same conditions, light rain the night before and into the morning. Clearing through out the afternoon with clouds entering the Valley more from the North than West and breezy winds. At just about the same general area as April 17 show,close to 5pm I spotted another HV. I got photos of it. I spotted two others, one too far away and small to get a decent photo and another got ran over by a cumulus by the time I put the camera on it. So..these HV are repeatables. If you spot one check out the conditions and locale because the physics may repeat the manifestation.
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Well heck..Yesterday, July 10,2019, ended on a surprising way. Another small HV breakout ,but this event took place in the sky over west Phoenix and it took place around 6:30pm. The required physics it takes to make HV didn’t manifest until late in the day. The first one I saw I missed gettin a photo of it . It dissipated by the time I ran inside and got the camera. But three more soon formed, all in the same general area of the sky. Phoenix had just reached the 110f plus temperatures within the last couple of days. If you see one, be patient. You may see more!
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