Unique clouds spotted in the region on Friday

(COLORADO SPRINGS) — One of the main reasons that Colorado gets such interesting weather is because of the Rocky Mountains. The 14,400-foot rock wall tends to disrupt our atmosphere and usher in unique weather.

Friday morning featured several lenticular clouds across the Pikes Peak Region as conditions were nearly perfect for these clouds to form. The video below shows those clouds as well as a separate video from Woodland Park a few years ago.

Lenticular clouds are often considered unique due to the specific conditions needed for them to form. Typically, a significant barrier of some kind is needed to disrupt the airflow in our upper atmosphere.

In the case of Colorado, the candidate for that task is obvious: the Rocky Mountains. Other mountain barriers and even man-made structures are also capable of satisfying this requirement.

Besides a physical barrier, lenticular clouds also require a few other ingredients to form.

Here in Colorado, these clouds typically start when semi-stable air is forced up against the west side of the mountains. From there, the deflection in the atmosphere’s flow allows for a gravity wave to potentially form on the east side of the mountain range. Gravity waves aren’t necessarily visible to the naked eye, but if clouds are able to form within the ripple — the wave becomes apparent in the form of lenticular clouds.

On the left side of the mountains (the east side here in Colorado), the gravity wave sets up an oscillation of wind patterns for different dynamics to come into play. The air above the mountain range also needs to have a good amount of moisture present to help the lenticular clouds form.

As the moisture interacts with the ups and downs of the wind field over the east side of the Rockies, clouds are able to rapidly form and dissipate. This gives lenticular clouds an almost ‘stationary’ appearance even as the flow of the atmosphere would push any other ‘normal’ cloud into a new position.

The timelapse above showcases this stationary feature well and is also a great visual for the ‘peaks’ and ‘valleys’ of the gravity wave. Recall that the lenticular clouds form with the rising moist air, and where there is sinking air you see a gap in the clouds with sunshine.

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