A few days ago there was a great example of trapped lee waves (also known as trapped mountain waves). These waves occur when the wind speed increases rapidly with height and the atmospheric stability decreases above a mountain-top or ridge-top stable layer. This results in a series of lee waves (and clouds) downstream of the mountain. This wind and stability situation is fairly common—especially in the winter.
Panoramic image of Altocumulus Standing Lenticular (ASCL) just before sunset.Cigar-shaped lee wave clouds.Another example of lee wave clouds.GOES-16 visible satellite imagery shows numerous wave clouds across northern Arizona
Towards sunset some higher-level Altocumulus Standing Lenticular (ACSL) clouds became more prominent and as the sun set became quite colorful. The image at the top of this post was taken a few minutes before sunset and is a panorama composed of five individual images taken with an ultra-wide 16 mm lens.
A few weeks ago I captured these images of wave clouds over the San Francisco Peaks. At first, there was a “short stack” of lenticular clouds, specifically Altocumulus Standing Lenticularis (ACSL).
Wave clouds over the San Francisco Peaks.
I took several photographs looking toward the peaks from the Bonito Park area near the west entrance of Sunset Crater Volcano National Monument. I alternated between wide-angle shots showing the snow-covered flats and zoomed-in images of the stack of clouds. After a few minutes, I was ready to leave.
Wide-angle view of wave clouds over the San Francisco Peaks.Zoomed-in crop showing structure of the wispy filaments with ACSL above.
But before I did leave, new clouds began to form beneath the stack of ACSL. These clouds were quite different and appeared as long, wispy filaments or rope-like clouds. Again, I took photographs ranging from wide-angle shots to zoomed-in shots. After about 8–10 minutes the delicate filaments began to take on more of an ACSL shape similar to the already-present ACSL above.
I was intrigued by the shapes of these clouds so I posted a comment with photographs to a weather discussion group with many atmospheric scientists far more aware of the dynamics and details of wave clouds than I. It turned into a fascinating discussion with links to journal articles, modeling studies and, inevitably, YouTube.
I do not think we reached a consensus on the dynamics and evolution of these cloud filaments but all agreed it was a worthwhile discussion.
