Abstract
IN view of the recent letters in NATURE on the cause of mammato-clouds, some observations on the conditions accompanying them may be of interest. The only case I can find when an aeroplane observation was made in mammato-cloud was over Berck (N.E. France) on the evening of July 17, 1918, at the height of 11,000 feet, at the base of a large mass of “anvil” cloud which had been carried by a strong upper current in advance of a line of thunderstorms, and extended up to the cirrus level. In this case the air was very turbulent, there was strong evidence of a downward current, and the lapse-rate of temperature was intermediate between the dry and saturated adiabatic rates. The cloud had the true bulging spherical structure, but the outline was not sharp, so that it was not a very good example. This was probably due partly to evaporation, partly to snow-flakes melting into rain-drops. As a general rule “anvil” clouds consist almost entirely of snowflakes.
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DOUGLAS, C. Formation of Mammato-Cloud. Nature 113, 462 (1924). https://doi.org/10.1038/113462a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/113462a0
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