Plate 14.
HAZY CIRRO-STRATUS.
(Cirro-stratus Nebulosus.)
In Plate [15] we have an example of a cloud which is clearly cirro-stratus, but the sheet is broken up into long bands, and each of these is made up of common cirrus. In the upper part of the picture the sprays of cirrus are forming, and as they come into being they are arranged in rows. We have here to do with a phenomenon of a very different order from the one presented by the true banded cirrus. The arrangement into belts must here be due to some kind of wave-movement in the air, breaking up the critical plane into long ribs transverse to the direction of the wave-movement. The specimen shown was moving in a direction nearly at right angles to the bands, though the surface wind was nearly parallel to their length. The question at once presented itself as to whether the movement of the bands was really a drift of the cloud, or whether it was not a case of the propagation of cloud production with the advancing wave. This was easily answered by watching the details of a band. The advancing side was always feathery, and careful observation showed that the edge advanced by throwing out new threads and curls. A given thread or curl, one moment at the edge, would in a few minutes be well in the band. Quite opposite events were taking place in the rear of each band. The cloud was there obviously melting away. Indeed, to sum the matter up, the cloud bands flowed past their details just as the waves on the sea flow past the floating foam. Evidently we have in Plate 15 the result of a plane of commencing cirrus formation broken into a series of troughs and waves by an undulatory movement of the air. But, as we have already said when speaking of cirrus inconstans, the condition in which trifling up-and-down movements can determine whether condensation shall, or shall not, take place seldom lasts long. It is usually only a stage in a continuous change, and in this particular instance the banded structure was soon replaced by a fairly continuous sheet of typical cirro-stratus.
Plate 15.
CIRRO-STRATUS.
Plate 15.