#2 Postby wjs3 » Wed Sep 06, 2006 2:57 pm
I was hoping someone else would take a crack at this, becasue I've only studied this once and think I might get parts of it wrong. Anyway...
I think those are transverse waves in the Cirrus clouds. I'm sure someone will help if I'm wrong in the exact naming.
The concept--at least with a tropical cyclone--is that when outflow gets established (remember that you can often "see" outflow in cirrus clouds over a TC), a wave pattern sets up that's essentially at right angles to the flow. (The atmosphere is funny this way--cloud patterns set up parallel to or perpendicular to the flow in places you wouldn't expect...cloud streets are a great example of this).
Anyway, with the TC, those waves are the rolls you're looking at .
Can anyone else build on this or correct me?
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