A massive cloud shaped like a flying saucer covered the top of California's Mount Shasta on Jan. 22.
Lenticular clouds can form in a stable atmosphere when wind blows moisture-rich air up and over a mountain. As the air moves up, it cools to a point where it condenses and forms a cloud. "There's moisture in the air that’s blowing, and it comes up the mountain and condenses as it gets cooler — that’s where you have the cloud form.
Since you have an obstacle in the way, the air goes around the mountain both ways, and you get a saucer shaped cloud," To get even more technical, the air blowing up and over the mountains creates what scientists call"gravity waves" and these play a key role in creating these clouds. "These gravity waves more specifically are orographic gravity waves," Cora Randall, a professor in the University of Colorado Boulder's Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, wrote in an email."As the air ascends, it cools and the water vapor condenses into clouds. But gravity then pulls the air down on the other side of the mountain, causing it to compress and warm up. This causes the clouds to dissipate. Typically, the momentum causes the air to overshoot its equilibrium point , so it begins to ascend again, expanding and cooling, before gravity pulls it back down and it warms up again. This process repeats itself until the momentum has become depleted. The overall result is a wave: the air rises and falls in a wave-like pattern as it moves up, over, and then away from the mountain."Randall explained that the cloud above Mount Shasta would have formed from the first gravity wave crest as the air traveled over the mountain.
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