I snapped this photo of a lenticular cloud about a month ago. I shot this the way I always do…on Fuji Velvia 100ISO slide film. Unfortunately, I had a new and different retailer scan the image for me to get it in a digital format, and I am really displeased with the outcome. The image lost a lot of resolution and appears much grainier than the actual slide was processed. Anyway, I’ll quit griping about it and just caption the image.
A few common meteorological ingredients have to be juxtaposed on the windward side of a topographical barrier for the formation of lenticular clouds. There were strong winds from the north northwest this day (about 15-25mph at the Albuquerque valley surface near 5,200ft, and between 30-40mph at 10,000ft just above the ridge tops of the Sandia mountain chain). A substantial temperature inversion, a stable layer of warm air over cooler air, had also formed above the Sandia mountains east of Albuquerque. The winds were oriented favorably with respect to the mountain chain. This caused moving air parcels within the wind flow to hit the mountains and be forced upward at a quick pace, and during this ascent the air parcels cooled. As the air parcels cooled, the moisture in the air parcels condensed and formed the lower structure of the cloud. The base of a lenticular cloud is usually quite pronounced and flat, marking the height where parcels reach saturation. As the parcels continue to rise, they eventually hit the stable layer which I eluded to, and then the parcels begin a descent…now that the air parcel is cooler than the surrounding warm air in the stable layer. This quick upward and then downward “wave” of air motion is referred to as a mountain wave, and outlines the dome or “lens” shaped cloud. Lenticular clouds usually form on the east side of the Sandias, away from Albuquerque, so I rarely see them. This particular one formed and dissipated within less than 10 minutes with a tiered appearance, looking like the “mother ship” coming in for a landing.
