Exeter residents posted photos on Facebook and excited Twitter posts about a cloud-like carpet flying over the city.
A photo from open sources
Sharp edge cloud formation was first seen in Saturday afternoon, but the hype arose when she reported on Twitter Laura Gilchrist, employee of the Weather Bureau.
Tweet from Gilchrist, an employee of the Meteorological Bureau: “This in the evening a diamond-shaped cloud was seen over Exeter. ”
But those who seek sensational or supernatural explanations will be disappointed. The representative of the Meteoburo assured residents that the cloud is just a weirdly shaped inversion trace – an artificial cloud formed by water vapor from jet engine of an airplane when it moves in the air.
A photo from open sources
True inversion clouds usually appear in the form of two thin bands diverging in the sky, and in this case a combination of unusual atmospheric conditions transformed emissions from the engine into floating rectangle.
A spokeswoman for the Weather Bureau said: “In this case, the aircraft passed through an air pocket where conditions for formation of a rectangular inverse shape, it was very brief moment”.
“The wind blew at right angles to the inversion track, and this led to the right atmospheric conditions. Air movement made ice crystals in this trail spread outward, creating rectangular cloud.
“It’s unusual to see a cloud with such precise edges as in this example, but the processes involved in the formation of the “carpet-plane” very common. ”
UK Airplanes
