Stuc a' Chroin and Ben Vorich

Stuc a' Chroin and Ben Vorich

Tuesday, 11 December 2012

Beautiful nacreous clouds





These photographs of iridescent clouds, taken from the garden at 9.10am on the 10 December are known as nacreous or mother of pearl clouds and are formed some 15 -25km high in the stratosphere at temperatures below -78C.

They most commonly appear in polar regions but it is apparently quite rare to see such good displays in the UK. The clouds play a part in the formation of ozone holes as they contain chemicals which destroy ozone. (Information from the Met Office).

10 comments:

AlanR said...

Thanks for that. I admit to never having heard of that cloud type.

Alan Sloman said...

Aha! Laura saw these too!
:-)

Laura said...

Your photos are better than mine......

afootinthehills said...

Me neither Alan.

afootinthehills said...

Hi Alan

Lots of sitings apparently.

afootinthehills said...

Aberdeenshire seems to have been particularly favoured Laura. I can't take credit for the photos - I just pointed the camera and pressed the button!

Laura said...

OOps! My naughty dithering computer mouse accidentally deleted your comment on my blog - please send it again......

afootinthehills said...

I've got dithering mice in the garage I think, but I try to keep them away from computers Laura.

Phreerunner said...

Very interesting Gibson - lovely clouds.

afootinthehills said...

Hi Matin

Neither of us had heard of them, let alone seen them, but Lynne immediately described them as 'mother of pearl' clouds!