"pogostix" <pogostix777@sbcglobal.net> wrote in message
news:IcQ7h.14140$yl4.503@newssvr12.news.prodigy.com...
| Any theories on this matter?. Could massive radon emissions cause the
clouds
| to open up this way?
|

The original clouds are formed of supercooled water - small water drops in
air well below freezing point. If the drop size is small enough, surface
tension effects can prevent the water freezing down to temperatures as low
as -40 (C or F). Most condensation nuclei allow water to condense on them
but do not provide the structure necessary to allow ice to form. (Silver
Iodide does, which is why it is used for cloud seeding). In nature, a
very
small number of "freezing nuclei" such as these will be present, allowing
a
small number of ice crystals to form.

This is an unstable situation, however, and if any ice is present it will
convert the supercooled drops to ice on contact. It will also have the
effect of condensing the remaining water vapour onto the ice particles
while
causing the water drops to evaporate [technically, this is because below
the
freezing point of water, the "saturated vapour pressure" over ice is less
than the "saturated vapour pressure" over water, meaning that air can be
saturated with water vapour over an ice surface when it is not over a
water
surface].

This is how much of our mid-latitude rain is formed - the ice crystals
grow
at the expense of the water drops and form snowflakes. When thunderclouds
form, you can see the top of the cloud "glaciate" as the hard edges of the
rising water clouds turn into ice at the very cold temperatures high up,
where they can no longer remain supercooled. These ice crystals then find
their way back down again, triggering more glaciation in the cloud and the
rainfall process.

What has this got to do with hole punch clouds? The thin layers of
supercooled water clouds they appear in are in this unstable condition.
Any
disturbance will cause some water drops to freeze and the resulting ice
crystals then grow and fall out. This disturbance could be a plane flying
through, something falling from a plane flying above, or even some random
natural event which causes some of the water drops to freeze and this wave
of freezing will then spread out through the supercooled drops around.

This, boring though it is, is all that is necessary to explain these
clouds.
In any event, where would the radon come from? Radon is a very heavy gas,
which is why it is a potential danger in areas with rocks such as granite.
Such rocks are slightly radioactive and release radon gas, which can
accumulate in basements and caverns. Radon is not of itself particularly
poisonous, but prolonged exposure to its radioactivity can produce cancer.

But, being much heavier than air, radon is not going to rise through the
atmosphere in great bubbles and punch holes in clouds 3 miles high by
radioactive particles disrupting the cloud drops, if that is what you were
thinking.
--
- Yokel -
oo oo
OOO OOO
OO 0 OO
) ( I ) (
) ( /\ ) (

"Yokel" now posts via a spam-trap account.
Replace my alias with stevejudd to reply.

Thanx Yokel. I forgot how heavy Radon was. Could this of been a seeding
event?