photo #7472124

A strange menagerie of forms, looking more like single-celled organisms through a microscope than clouds, appeared to Pamela Hathaway (Member 63,790) in the skies over Sedona, Arizona, US. Although these are all examples of the lenticularis form of the mid-level solid-looking cloud Altocumulus, they are rougher and more contorted than the smooth disc or lozenge shapes typical of Altocumulus lenticularis clouds. Lenticularis develop in stable airflows made to rise and dip as they pass over raised terrain. The formations appear at the crests of these invisible standing waves where the air cools most. When the elevated winds are powerful enough, any abrupt and irregular landforms cause turbulence in the airflows. The red rock formations of this region of Arizona provide an abundance of such turbulence-inducing land features – turbulence that likely jumbled Pamela’s lenticularis into irregular organic shapes. In words from The Emerald Tablet (c. 600-800CE), ‘That which is below is like that which is above and that which is above is like that which is below…’.