APOD: Roll Cloud Over Wisconsin (2013 Sep 08)

[APOD Robot]

Roll Cloud Over Wisconsin

Explanation: What kind of cloud is this? A type of arcus cloud called a roll cloud. These rare long clouds may form near advancing cold fronts. In particular, a downdraft from an advancing storm front can cause moist warm air to rise, cool below its dew point, and so form a cloud. When this happens uniformly along an extended front, a roll cloud may form. Roll clouds may actually have air circulating along the long horizontal axis of the cloud. A roll cloud is not thought to be able to morph into a tornado. Unlike a similar shelf cloud, a roll cloud is completely detached from their parent cumulonimbus cloud. Pictured above, a roll cloud extends far into the distance as a storm approached in 2007 in Racine, Wisconsin, USA.

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[Boomer12k]

Great Roll Cloud...."Rollin', rollin', rollin'....keep those clouds a movin'...."

Nice.

:---[===] *

[fausto.lubatti]

Astonishing... great shot!

[starsurfer]

Wisconsin seems like a nice place.

[CDA]

Hey guys, isn't this supposed to be Astronomy? Earth weather isn't astronomy.

[Gowron007]

Holy shit, that looks like a giant wave made of snow about to swallow Wisconsin!

[czartim52]

Same roll cloud picture from 8-11-11. Run out of new pic's?

[ignacio_db]

Actually from 8-31-11. Same caption too. What happened?

[geckzilla]

Actually from 8-31-11. Same caption too. What happened?

Yesterday's was a repeat too. Weekends have a high repeat chance. It's to give them some time off but they like to feature some favorites over again too.

[neufer]

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<<Johnson Wax Headquarters in Racine, Wisconsin was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and constructed from 1936 to 1939. The building features Wright's interpretation of the streamlined Art Moderne style popular in the 1930s. The building features many curvilinear forms and subsequently required over 200 different curved "Cherokee red" bricks to create the sweeping curves of the interior and exterior. The mortar between the bricks is raked in traditional Wright-style to accentuate the horizontality of the building. The warm, reddish hue of the bricks was used in the polished concrete floor slab as well; the white stone trim and white dendriform columns create a subtle yet striking contrast. All of the furniture was designed for the building by Wright and it mirrored many of the building's unique design features. In the Great Workroom, the dendriform columns are 9 inches in diameter at the bottom and 18 feet in diameter at the top, on a wide, round platform that Wright termed, the "lily pad." >>

Art Moderne Neuendorffer

[owlice]

Actually from 8-31-11. Same caption too. What happened?

Yesterday's was a repeat too. Weekends have a high repeat chance. It's to give them some time off but they like to feature some favorites over again too.

Yesterday's was a repeat?? I don't think so; it doesn't come up in a search.

[geckzilla]

Yesterday's was a repeat?? I don't think so; it doesn't come up in a search.

You're correct. The memory of it being an APOD was so fresh in my mind that I didn't even check. I guess I'll just blame alien memory implantation.

[Psnarf]

I advocate the inclusion of such weather-related images. Astronomy is not all about phenomena outside our solar system or above the atmosphere. We need to take a look around down here once in a while. Images such as the above give us pause. I might not be a smart idea to open the observatory domes and expose the telescopes to the elements when a roll cloud is approaching (wait, that's two reasons, let me enter again) Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition. Our two weapons are awe of the universe and telescope safety and weather we can't explain, like thunderstorms with gamma rays linking lightning bolts to the ionosphere,,,drat! that's three....

[Tszabeau]

I wonder if rolling cluods, like this with horizontal rotation, form in nebulea.

[Chris Peterson]

Actually from 8-31-11. Same caption too. What happened?

Yesterday's was a repeat too. Weekends have a high repeat chance. It's to give them some time off but they like to feature some favorites over again too.

I believe that RJN and company have a sly sense of humor, using the weekends not just to recycle images, but to recycle relatively non-astronomical images. No doubt they lurk here to watch with glee the inevitable boatload of disgruntlement about repeats and content!

[whowho]

Hey guys, isn't this supposed to be Astronomy? Earth weather isn't astronomy.

I'm a professional astronomer, and I do not agree with you. Earth is just another planet! But, we get a REALLY close up view, at MUCH lower cost than for the seven other planets!

[Guest]

I wonder if rolling cluods, like this with horizontal rotation, form in nebulea.

Great thought, in my opinion! And I wonder if interstellar lightning bolts proceed from interstellar cloud to interstellar cloud! Never seen a paper on the subject.

[teehee]

The Earth Science POD is wonderful today (Sep 8) http://epod.usra.edu/blog/

[Chris Peterson]

I wonder if rolling cluods, like this with horizontal rotation, form in nebulea.

Probably not. There are very few parallels between atmospheric clouds and nebular clouds, because most of the dynamics of atmospheric clouds depend upon gravity, and upon the density gradient that gravity produces in the surrounding medium.

Certainly, the material in nebulas can exhibit density gradients, but the environment is very different from a planetary atmosphere.

[owlice]

Hey guys, isn't this supposed to be Astronomy? Earth weather isn't astronomy.

I'm a professional astronomer, and I do not agree with you. Earth is just another planet! But, we get a REALLY close up view, at MUCH lower cost than for the seven other planets!

This. Thank you!

[LocalColor]

Makes one wonder if these kinds of clouds form on other planets. Astronomy and weather are both fascinating to us. Thanks APOD - we love the Sunday repeats as they are usually outstanding images.

[Beyond]

I guess I'll just blame alien memory implantation.

You have those too

[neufer]

Weekends have a high repeat chance. It's to give them some time off but they like to feature some favorites over again too.

I believe that RJN and company have a sly sense of humor, using the weekends not just to recycle images, but to recycle relatively non-astronomical images. No doubt they lurk here to watch with glee the inevitable boatload of disgruntlement about repeats and content!

Non-astronomical images also generally require less scrutiny of the text in order that obsolete data isn't being presented.

E.g.: while waiting for the LADEE launch I got a nice view of a rising orange Arcturus with my 20x100 binoculars.

<<With a visual magnitude of −0.04, Arcturus (α Boo, α Boötis, Alpha Boötis) is the fourth brightest star in the night sky, after −1.46 magnitude Sirius, −0.86 magnitude Canopus, and (unresolved binary) −0.27 magnitude Alpha Centauri. Arcturus achieved fame when its light was used to open the 1933 Chicago World's Fair. The star was chosen as it was thought that light from Arcturus had started its journey at about the time of the previous Chicago World's Fair in 1893. Arcturus is now known (from the Hipparcos satellite) to be only 36.7 light years away so the light had, actually, started its journey in 1896.>>

[geckzilla]

I believe that RJN and company have a sly sense of humor, using the weekends not just to recycle images, but to recycle relatively non-astronomical images. No doubt they lurk here to watch with glee the inevitable boatload of disgruntlement about repeats and content!

I am pretty sure you are joking around with this post, but I felt the need to respond to it as if it were serious.

The comments at Asterisk are uniquely disgruntled. At the other places the images get shared to, people comment on and hit the "like" button on the terrestrial images more often, even if they have nothing to do with space. I was going through the most liked images at the FB page and for August it was Amazing Sky's Retreating Thunderstorm. For July, it was Joey Mole's Florida Waterspout. Finally, in June, John Moore's Crater Lake was an astronomical one, but still local Earth shot. They are heavily influenced by the excitement generated by these images rather than letting some disgruntlement preclude them from featuring more of them. Since it's all about outreach, it makes sense.

[rstevenson]

What you may be seeing there is simply demographics. The people reached through the FaceBook page, for example, are not likely the same people who deliberately come to the Asterisk to comment. And these latter may be more serious about astronomy and therefore more disappointed at non-astronomical (in their opinion) images.

I'm not, I feel I need to add, among those who are disappointed by the images posted as APODs. They're all quite wonderful.

But I do have a strong preference for galaxies and clusters. Jus' sayin'.

Rob