An odd circular opening in this cirrus cloud over St. Petersburg, Florida was photographed by my friend Maria Ferraro on November 24, 2008.
I’ve always loved clouds. Especially those white cottony cumulus clouds of summer, and the huge, dark, menacing cumulonimbus with their white cirrus anvils.
In my high school library I found a big heavy book with color photos and scientific names for hundreds of types of cloud formations. I studied the book for weeks. Weird for a 15 year old to read a book on clouds I suppose, but I loved it.
I was really happy when my friend Maria Ferraro shared this photo that she took on November 24th, 2008. It looks like a cirrus formation and it has a very unusual circular opening. I think she has submitted it to Fox 13 weatherpix in hopes of having it shown on the late weather forecast, and in hopes of winning an umbrella (that’s the prize for having your photo picked as a winner).
Maria works with photos a lot and helped me create a beautiful book from the historical family photos that my dad had in his collection. You can see her work at www.anelmarcreation.com.
UPDATE: January 17th, 2009:
It seems this phenomenon is referred to as a “punch hole cloud” and may have to do with either jet traffic or warm columns of air rising. Cirrus clouds, I believe, are generally made up of very tiny ice crystals. But sometimes the particles remain “supercooled” water droplets that do not freeze. When a jet passes through the cloud, the particulates from the exhaust mix with the supercooled water droplets and cause them to freeze and fall out, creating the empty hole. That’s one explanation I found at an interesting website with more really neat photos of punch hole clouds and other crazy cloud formations.
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What an amazing cloud formation…I would be interested to hear what made it form like that.
WOW! THIS IS SO COOL! I LIKE IT!
it is more likely that a hole that size was created by HAARP increased temperature focused on the ionosphere from it’s transmitters
Interesting idea, but we don’t have any HAARP arrays in Florida.
Excellent! And weird. The opening is far too symmetrical to be natural, don’t you think? What’s on the ground below it?
Hi Stanzi, thanks for dropping by and commenting. Many things in nature are often symmetrical–leaves for instance, palm branches, and most animals evidence some type of symmetry. We are not accustomed to seeing near perfect circles in the sky, so this phenomenon seems “unnatural.” But most summers we see hurricanes from above and witness the often nearly perfectly circular eye-wall of these storms. And in the water–rivers, lakes, streams, toilet bowls–currents often create eddies that are circular. So to me it does not seem that implausible for wind currents, whether natural or created by jets, to create conditions that make a circular hole in a cloud. Did you follow the link in this blog post to see other similar cloud formations?
In the photo in this blog post there is nothing unusual beneath the hole. This was taken over residential St. Petersburg, Florida by a friend of mine with a point-and-shoot camera. She just happened to look up and notice the odd cloud formation and had her camera handy. How often does that happen? Lucky shot, no?
I love it!
Thats called HAARP and CHEMTRAILS.
Do some homework.
Rastamon, if you have some scientific evidence of your assertion, please post links to scientific studies instead of snarky comments.
First though , get your hands on a study by Andrew J. Heymsfield, et al., called “Formation and Spread of Aircraft-Induced Holes in Clouds,: partially funded by the National Center for Atmospheric Research. Here’s the abstract from the study, published in the July 1, 2011 edition of the journal “Science”:
“Hole-punch and canal clouds have been observed for more than 50 years, but the mechanisms of formation, development, duration, and thus the extent of their effect have largely been ignored. The holes have been associated with inadvertent seeding of clouds with ice particles generated by aircraft, produced through spontaneous freezing of cloud droplets in air cooled as it flows around aircraft propeller tips or over jet aircraft wings. Model simulations indicate that the growth of the ice particles can induce vertical motions with a duration of 1 hour or more, a process that expands the holes and canals in clouds. Global effects are minimal, but regionally near major airports, additional precipitation can be induced. ”
Note that the HAARP program began in 1990, but the hole punch clouds have been observed for more than 50 years. That means this phenomenon has been observed for more than 40 years before the HAARP program came into existence, or roughly since the time jet air travel became common. Coincidence?
Here’s an excellent layman’s explanation of the journal article: http://www.aaas.org/news/releases/2011/0630sp_planes.shtml
Or if you’ve really got some free time on your hands, this Google search will give you plenty of info.
I’ve looked up the info on HAARP arrays and Chemtrails. All I see is speculation of the conspiracy theory type. You can believe whatever you want to believe, but I’ll go with the science any day.
And here’s an article from Nat Geo that compares the science and the science fiction:
Its beautiful! I love how informative you are on clouds! Thanks so much for posting this!