this was forwarded to me by a friend this morning and it is so wonderful I just had to share it. The raw image was emailed to me so I didn't have a URL to reference so I just uploaded it to my website so you all could see it. The writeup below was part of the email I received that contained the image. WOW!
http://www.narrowbandimaging.com/images/st_helens_sunrise.jpg
Picture by Brent and Jan LeBaron
What forms the "smoke rings" is the air flowing over the mountain getting pushed up higher as it goes up and over the top. The moisture content and initial temperature are just right so that the moisture condenses from a vapor to small particles at the higher altitude. When the moving air moves past the peak and comes down again, the particles evaporate back to an invisible vapor. The two "pancakes" describe that there are two layers of air for which this is happening, thus making this awesome picture possible.
Received on Sat Apr 23 09:56:49 2005
