Posted on 12/17/2022 11:32:37 AM PST by thecodont
Noctilucent clouds — the rarest clouds in the world — glowed like shimmering cobwebs in the sky over the San Francisco Bay Area early Friday morning, and experts think they were likely the result of a rocket launch. Skywatchers across the region were delighted by the otherworldly spectacle overhead and shared images on social media. One Twitter user posted a photo taken in the Sunset District at 6:30 a.m. "Pretty crazy looking," the tweet read.
Scientists chimed in with excitement. "Great shot of what appears to be a noctilucent cloud over the SF Bay Area this morning!" UCLA climate scientist Daniel Swain posted in response to one photo. "Such clouds are very rare at this latitude and also in winter, and are the Earth's highest and driest clouds, forming in the mesosphere about 50 miles (!) up."
The National Weather Service confirmed Bay Area residents were indeed looking at noctilucent clouds just before sunrise, and the the clouds' occurrence is highly unusual. The clouds are most prevalent in the polar regions at the North and South Poles. When they do appear on the West Coast, which isn't often, they more commonly form in the Pacific Northwest.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
+1
Gorgeous picture!
Yep, for those of here at (just shy of) 38 degrees North, they are a real novelty.
There was a rocket launch on Friday morning from Vandenberg, might have been from that
Just wait a while.
😂
Thanks. I’ll tell my son. He did a great job with the black tree for foreground interest.
Yes, possibly. This is not a typical latitude from which to see the noctilucent clouds which would naturally occur (one site said they were made from "frosted meteor dust").
Ya sf is a little far north.
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