Wave Clouds

Leewaves1+2.jpg, Details.jpg: At around ten o'clock in the morning these orographic Leewave clouds arose above the Karavankes in Carinthia. These are Altocumulus lenticularis clouds with a laminar layering.

LWclouds1-5.jpg show an Altocumulus Leewave cloud field which is illuminated by the low-standing sun in the arctic. The colours are represented true to original.

LWclouds6+7.jpg, LWclouds8-10.jpg: These Leewave clouds arose in the medium level south from the Pyrenees at north-westerly flow. Leewave clouds very often occur here. So it is no surprise that Salvador Dali painted them in several pictures, for example in "Femme a la fenetre a Figueras".

Waterwaves1+2.jpg: The formation of Leewave clouds behind mountains is similar to the formation of a standing wave behind stones in flowing waters. This can be seen from these two images. The water continuously flows over the stone and the single fluid elements are lifted up and down within the wave.

The wave itself remains stationary, whereas the foam on the water oscillates like a roller coaster (see the first wave peak in Waterwaves1.jpg). Several peaks of stationary waves can be noticed in these images. In wave peaks of the atmospheric Leewave clouds super-saturation caused by fast adiabatic expansion can occur and clouds can be formed then. These Leewave clouds "mark" the peaks of the otherwise invisible Leewaves.

Further kinds of atmospheric Leewave clouds can be found in chapter Brown Cloud and Polar Stratospheric Clouds.

LeeWaves1.jpg, LeeWaves2.jpg, Details.jpg: S. Borrmann, Pulpit Rock, Carinthia, 25 December 2001

LWclouds1+2.jpg: A. Thomas, Kiruna, Northern Sweden, APE-ENVISAT Validation Campaign, 26 February 2003, 5:50 p.m.

LWclouds3-5.jpg: R. Weigel, Kiruna, Northern Sweden, APE-ENVISAT Validation Campaign, 26 February 2003

LWclouds6+7.jpg: S. Borrmann, near Figueras, Northern Spain, 14 June 2004, 9:11 a.m.

LWclouds8-10.jpg: S. Borrmann, near Gerona, Northern Spain, 14 June 2004, 8:10 p.m.

Femme.jpg: Salvador Dali, Femme a la fenetre a Figueras (1926), Oil on Canvas, 24 cm x 25 cm, Collection Juan Casanelles, Barcelona, Spain

Waterwaves1+2.jpg: S. Borrmann, Kyrbach at the Hunsrueck, Germany, April 2003