Nixta Rolls |
Rolling is so much less dangerous than tumbling |
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Photo
![Earth, observed - The Big Picture
[ FYI, that is a pattern in the clouds downwind of Amsterdam Island, just barely visible on the middle-left of the picture ]
In my heady days of flying transatlantic every third week I saw many curious looking cloud formations. My geography lessons are so far behind me and so safely the other side of the fuzzy curtain of hangover that sits between me and my childhood that what little I could remember about cloud formations certainly didn’t cover a great deal of what I saw.
Wave formation seemed to be very common though. In fact, some of the patterns I recall might very well match wave interference (which I was introduced to in spectacularly unfair fashion when I was merely 11 years old by an angry prefect who gave me two sides to write entitled Young’s Slits - I was later given 2 sides on the Skin Friction of a Ping-Pong Ball which even my father felt was so ridiculous that he allowed me to write a fictional piece about how ping pong balls don’t grow skin).
Either way, it’s much more fascinating that people let on, and ultimately of course is much closer to fluid dynamics than seems to be commonly recognised.
Clouds are, after all, merely markers of temperature and moisture in the air. If you can keep one of those constant and the other near to the point at which moisture will condense, you’re on to some real airborne magic.
But try to stare at the sky and predict the clouds and you’ll be driven mad before you manage it.](http://26.media.tumblr.com/PjAa8NPoSiq68cpwKxrdHtjro1_500.jpg)
Earth, observed - The Big Picture
[ FYI, that is a pattern in the clouds downwind of Amsterdam Island, just barely visible on the middle-left of the picture ]
In my heady days of flying transatlantic every third week I saw many curious looking cloud formations. My geography lessons are so far behind me and so safely the other side of the fuzzy curtain of hangover that sits between me and my childhood that what little I could remember about cloud formations certainly didn’t cover a great deal of what I saw.
Wave formation seemed to be very common though. In fact, some of the patterns I recall might very well match wave interference (which I was introduced to in spectacularly unfair fashion when I was merely 11 years old by an angry prefect who gave me two sides to write entitled Young’s Slits - I was later given 2 sides on the Skin Friction of a Ping-Pong Ball which even my father felt was so ridiculous that he allowed me to write a fictional piece about how ping pong balls don’t grow skin).
Either way, it’s much more fascinating that people let on, and ultimately of course is much closer to fluid dynamics than seems to be commonly recognised.
Clouds are, after all, merely markers of temperature and moisture in the air. If you can keep one of those constant and the other near to the point at which moisture will condense, you’re on to some real airborne magic.
But try to stare at the sky and predict the clouds and you’ll be driven mad before you manage it.
