Chatted with a storm chaser at a gas station and he told me lenticular clouds are way more dangerous than I thought

He said those smooth lens-shaped ones over mountains can hide violent turbulence that'll rip a small plane apart, so now I'm rethinking all those times I just thought they looked cool, has anyone else had a casual conversation completely change how you see a certain cloud?

3 comments

3 Comments

blairf481mo ago

Man, that really hit me. My buddy's a weather spotter for the county. He told me about mammatus clouds once. You know the ones that look like lumpy pouches under a storm? I always thought they were just a sign the storm was ending. He laughed. Said those things mean the storm is actually at its most violent, with insane updrafts and hail forming right above you. Now whenever I see that sky, I just feel this chill. It's like the clouds have this whole secret language we're missing.

finleythomas2mo ago

All that hidden danger in pretty clouds reminds me how the calmest looking situations in life often carry the most risk.

grant.margaret3mo ago

You know what gets me thinking though, is if lenticular clouds hide that kind of violence, what about the pretty, innocent-looking ones? I used to think high, thin cirrus clouds were basically harmless, just some ice crystals way up there. But my cousin flies for a small cargo outfit and he says those can be a sign of a jet stream that'll hit you with 100+ mph winds out of nowhere, no warning. Makes you realize every cloud in the sky is basically screaming a warning, we just don't know how to read it.