We see these beautiful cloud often out west.
Enjoy!
In meteorology, virga is an observable streak or shaft of precipitation that falls from acloud but evaporates or sublimes before reaching the ground.[1] At high altitudes theprecipitation falls mainly as ice crystals before melting and finally evaporating; this is often due to compressional heating, because the air pressure increases closer to the ground. It is very common in the desert and in temperate climates. In North America, it is commonly seen in the Western United States and the Canadian Prairies. It is also very common in theMiddle East, Australia and North Africa.
Virga can cause varying weather effects, because as rain is changed from liquid to vaporform, it removes heat from the air due to the high heat of vaporization of water. In some instances, these pockets of colder air can descend rapidly, creating a dry microburst which can be extremely hazardous to aviation. Conversely, precipitation evaporating at high altitude can compressionally heat as it falls, and result in a gusty downburst which may substantially and rapidly warm the surface temperature. This fairly rare phenomenon, aheat burst, also tends to be of exceedingly dry air.
No comments:
Post a Comment