Clouds

[Matt]

No so much a trip report as a collection of pictures of cloud formations we encountered on a recent trip along the Great Ocean Road.

 

Do you go under, over or around...

 

 

Cloud surfing anyone...this was a very bizarre cloud formation, seriously looked just like a "tube" wave of cloud...which of course we had to "hang 10" on

 

 

Why flying around coastal areas can get "interesting" really quickly

 

 

You wouldn't be anywhere else for quids!

 

 

 

[motzartmerv]

nice shots mate from the office..:thumb_up:

 

 

[Guest ROM]

Those two centre shots are a good shots of sea breeze fronts where land air masses meet cooler sea air masses.

 

Good lift along the front if you are game!

 

 

[PaulN]

Great shots Matt & Kaz ... you're right "You wouldn't be anywhere else for quids". Flying is a wonderful privilege.

 

Here's an interesting cloud shot I took over Batemans Bay last week on an early morning trip from Cooma to Port Macquarie. The Clyde River was covered in fog for most of its length right into the bay where as the varied water temps of river and sea evened out the cloud dissipated.

 

Paul

 

 

 

[Kaz]

That's awesome!

 

 

[trevorp]

Interesting photo's, as for the first one , did you go under over or around?

 

cheers Trevor.

 

 

[Yenn]

Good shots. If I remember right there can be good lift in that area.

 

I flew out of Grovedale and Lovely Banks many years ago, but my real memory is of how cold it can be as well as humid. I had an engine failure at take off due to carby ice at Grovedale. Luckily I didn't get it off the ground. A week later a 310 cessna ran off the end of the strip with the same problem.

 

Happy days.

 

 

[Matt]

Interesting photo's, as for the first one , did you go under over or around?

We went around that one, clearance between cloud base and earth was a little tight...it was pretty clear to the right of that formation...better to be safe.

 

 

[alf jessup]

All though this was not taken while i was flying, i thought you all might like to see it anyway.

 

It was taken on the 22.02.07 while i was on a platform in Bass Strait.

 

If i was flying I think I would have went over it.

 

Cheers

 

Alf

 

 

 

[alf jessup]

Here's another one of the same roll cloud as the edge of the front went past.

 

Cheers

 

Alf

 

 

 

[Guest ROM]

Magnificent shots of that roll cloud, Alf.

 

In the early 1970's, I was unbelievably lucky to be in the right place at the right time just when a roll cloud formed out of a clear blue cloudless sky, a few kilometres south west of Horsham.

 

Call it blind stupid luck and nothing else, I was just getting a glider launch in a Std Cirrus glider at that moment and after a half minute or so of total incomprehension as to what was happening a couple of kilometres up wind from us, I twigged what the impossible hangar sized cloud, which was forming just above the ground and just started simply exploding NW and SE as I watched, was a roll cloud.

 

The tuggie headed for the cloud and I released and headed for the front of the roll cloud, arriving there at about 300 feet above ground level.

 

I barrelled along the front of that roll cloud at over 100 knots for tens of kilometres across the country side in the lift area right up against the cloud front and all at around an altitude of 300 to 500 feet above ground level.

 

I indulged in crazy high speed pull-ups going vertical for hundreds of feet before rolling over and barrelling down along the face of the roll cloud again.

 

It was one of the most fabulous, impossible and crazy rides I have ever had and lasted for an hour or so as the roll cloud rolled it's way across the countryside in a north easterly direction.

 

It eventually started to thicken up to a couple of thousand feet high and lost it's structure as a long very shallow wedge of cloud formed under a completely clear blue sky behind the cloud front.

 

Finally I flew through a break in the cloud front to get back to the strip which was now some kilometres behind the advancing frontal cloud and promptly got shot down into a paddock as I ran into pouring rain a couple of kilometres behind the cloud front.

 

Every pilot when he / she flies for long enough has a few extraordinary experiences and a crazy exhilarating highs that they will never forget as long as they live.

 

This flight is one of mine!

 

 

[K-man]

Great shots! Here are a couple more. The seemingly unbroken cloud was on the way to Birdsville for the races last month. We were actually in clear air. The cloud with virga is over Coober Pedy and was the only cloud in the sky. :thumb_up:

 

 

 

 

[Guest pelorus32]

G'day ROM,

 

what a great story. Was it possible to ride up and back across the roll cloud? When big fronts come through the cold air forms a wedge under the preceding hot air and the hot air angles up and back from the roll. On big southern fronts that can range up to FL180 and 125nm or more behind the front.

 

Just interested to know whether the lift is there to use.

 

I've got a brilliant visual picture from your story...just brilliant. Many thanks.

 

Mike

 

 

[Guest ROM]

G'day Pelorus.

 

The day was absolutely cloudless with no evidence of fronts or anything on the horizion which makes this whole event seem even more implausible.

 

I was a little wrong in the above post as I said the cloud was upwind.

 

The wind when we took off was actually a light WNW which as it turned out was blowing parallel to the orientation of the roll cloud when it formed.

 

There was no evidence of any roll cloud until perhaps 2 or 3 minutes after take off and at about 800 feet on tow when I spotted this crazy impossible small cloud just above the ground some 4 or 5 kilometres SW of the Horsham airstrip.

 

The tuggie spotted it too and like all good tuggie's made haste to get there.

 

When I reached the cloud at high speed and about 300 feet, I pulled up and over the top of it at about 800 feet which was well clear of the top of the cloud and then I barrelled down in front of it for the ride in the lift area right up against the roll cloud face.

 

Our two seat Blanik trainer of the time managed to get launched before the roll cloud rolled across the Horsham strip as the whole roll cloud swept NNE.

 

The Blanik spent some time soaring above the roll at 800 to a 1000 feet and they told me later that I was still going vertical some hundreds of feet above them as I pulled into a climb from the lift area at 100 plus knots from 300 feet

 

The glider guys still on the ground reported it as being real eerie with a very rapid increase in wind speed as the roll cloud only a 100 or so feet above ground, swept across them.

 

For the first 20 minutes to half hour there was just clear air behind the roll but you could not go behind the top of the roll or you suddenly were on the way down in some serious sink.

 

The length wise explosion of the roll was simply unbelievable in it's speed with no more than 5 minutes or so from when I first saw this tiny completely improbable hangar sized cloud almost on the ground to SW of the strip to the roll extending over the Little Desert and the horizion to the WNW and ESE past the northern tip of the Grampians.

 

The visible roll cloud extent that I could see was probably in excess of 120 kilometres long and I saw no end to it as I flew along it for many kilometres.

 

I flew some 20 or 30 kilometres along the roll to the WNW and out across the Desert all at 300 to 500 feet at the above 100 knots or so while throwing in a number of heart racing, Whoopee maneuvers.

 

After the first 20 minutes or so the top of the roll started to rise in height but maintained the 100 foot or thereabouts ground clearance.

 

I was too busy enjoying myself in front of the cloud in the tremendous lift area very close to the cloud face to climb to the very top and look over the rising top.

 

When the lift quietened down after about three quarters of an hour by guess, I did climb to the top of the cloud which was then about 2000 feet high / thick and that is when I saw this extraordinary and totally flat and imperceptibly rising wedge of total cloud cover as far as I could see to the SW.

 

This was still under a totally cloudless blue sky so the distance I could see this cloud deck to the SW ran to many tens of kilometres without a change of any sort nor was there any clouds on the far horizon.

 

About this time it was getting late in the day and the cloud front was starting to break up so I found a gap and headed through it towards the strip and into what looked like a pretty dark area behind the cloud front.

 

To my utter surprise it was bucketing rain from a cloud deck that was no more than a couple of thousand feet thick behind the front.

 

I just plowed into a paddock within a couple of minutes and had a 5 or 6 kilometre walk back to the strip in pouring rain.

 

An extraordinary, fabulous and unbelievable flight never to be repeated and never to be forgotten!

 

 

[Tomo]

All though this was not taken while i was flying, i thought you all might like to see it anyway.It was taken on the 22.02.07 while i was on a platform in Bass Strait.

If i was flying I think I would have went over it.

 

Cheers

 

Alf

That's an AWESOME pic, with the lightning an everything:clap:

 

Cheers,

 

Tom

 

 

[Guest pelorus32]

G'day ROM,

 

it sounds like a weak front doesn't it? I have seen these when sailing sometimes. Unlike the big vicious roll cloud that Alf posted a picture of, these ones often come out of a clear blue sky. Sometimes the passage of the cooler air and rising wedge of warm air ahead of it create a little cloud - sometimes not.

 

I recall one day coming from Queenscliff to Melbourne. We'd beat up the West Channel and were slowly making our way north. Away towards the SW - in towards the shore you could see a line of whitecaps on the water. I went to sleep leaving my crew to it. I woke up with a start as we gybed. Rushed up on deck to find my crew struggling to stop the boat from rounding up and to get the sheets slacked away. Down to leeward of us the line of whitecaps was moving rapidly to the NE. Hardly a cloud or anything else associate with it. But distinctly cooler air once it had passed.

 

Funny stuff the weather!

 

Regards

 

Mike

 

 

[Guest ROM]

Yes, the roll cloud definitely was associated with and what later, in retrospect, I am fairly certain was a locally developing and very unusual frontal system.

 

The fully formed roll cloud appeared to be very, very similar in height, size and the tubular shape to Alf's first photo.

 

It did not have the slope back of Alf's second photo but maintained the tubular shape and the above ground base height and the roll top height of about 5 or 600 feet for perhaps 20 minutes or more after full formation and the full extension and elongation over the horizion before slowly starting to change into what was obviously an extremely unusual and shallow frontal type system.

 

I certainly did not recognise it as a frontal system until I tried to fly back through it and got thoroughly drenched.

 

Initially there was no cloud at all behind the roll, just clear air and I don't know at just what stage in that hour or so after the initial roll cloud formed that cloud formed behind the roll and a frontal system developed.

 

Certainly it was well after it had passed over the strip about 20 minutes after initial formation as our guys said that the roll cloud was just plain eerie with strong winds associated with the roll passing overhead.

 

After all, I was having just such of a heck of a good time just playing and zinging around in that lift area in front of that cloud to bother about such mundane details as just what the heck was this thing!

 

From memory, there was about 2 inches of rain out of this system which I walked back through and the glider sat in the paddock for most of the following week until it was dry enough to go into the paddock to derig and trailer it out.

 

As a sequel to this; A few weeks later, one of our gliding club members who was at the strip when the above roll cloud formed and rolled over the strip, was up predawn and driving a vechile about 30 kilometres NE of the Horsham Aerodrome and a few kilometres west of Minyip.

 

He was startled to see and stopped and watched three perfectly formed roll clouds roll in sequence across the top of him in the early predawn light.

 

The roll clouds were at a similar low base level above ground with a few hundred metres between them as they passed over his head.

 

I have never seen or heard any other reports of similar roll clouds or similar events this far inland since all that time ago in the early 1970's.

 

As I said, just blind, stupid and unbelievable luck that I should have been in that place at that time to be able to experience something so utterly unique!