A punch hole in the clouds?
This weird and rare phenomenon was photographed over Britain in the last days. WOW!
This fallstreak cloud spotted over Britain this week looks like someone had punched a hole in the sky.
This strange hole in the sky is actually a rare holepunch cloud also known as fallstreak cloud. It is caused by a combination of both mother nature and man… Some ice crystals forming around an aeroplane!
How do holepunch clouds form?
- For the fallstreak hole to begin, cirrocumulus or altocumulus must contain super-cooled water which cannot freeze without a tiny particle to first cling to.
- An airplane flying through the clouds for starting the process.
Air passing along propeller blades or wings expands and cools rapidly. The ice crystals begin to form and after the plane is long gone – the crystals can still be seen where they’ve dropped down below the cloud. What’s left above the drifting ice particles is a round hole in the cloud that can sometimes be very large.
This holepunch cloud photographed above the UK is really an eerie and weird phenomenon!
