photo #4568168

Every year, in the months of September and October, glider pilots from around the world travel to the isolated outback town of Burketown, Queensland, Australia in search of a cloud. Known by locals as the Morning Glory cloud, it is an enormous roll cloud, or Stratocumulus volutus, that forms in a wave of air that travels during the night across the Gulf of Carpentaria and reaches the Queensland coast at first light. The glider pilots wait around for days for the cloud to show, and when it does they rush to Burketown’s airstrip to take to the air. From his cockpit, Michael Zupanc (Member 59,881) spotted a fellow glider flying gracefully over the Morning Glory cloud, cast in golden hues by the rising Sun. If they can get airborne in time, the pilots are able to ride the smoothly lifting air at the front of the wave that carries the Morning Glory cloud. The shifting position of the cloud shows them where to locate their aircraft to catch the invisible wave, and to soar at high speeds over large distances in the atmospheric equivalent of surfing.