The Flying Saucer At Sunset

Lenticular clouds (Altocumulus lenticularis) are stationary lens-shaped clouds with a smooth layered appearance that form in the troposphere, usually above mountain ranges. One was spotted in Singapore recently...

Eyes Of 30,000 Honeycombs

With 30,000 individual facets, dragonflies have the most number of facets among insects. Each facet, or ommatidia, creates its own image, and the dragonfly brain has eight pairs of descending visual neurons to compile those thousands of images into one picture...

A Kaleidoscope Of Colours, Shapes And Patterns

Spectacular and innovative in design, the Flower Dome replicates the cool-dry climate of Mediterranean regions like South Africa, California and parts of Spain and Italy. Home to a collection of plants from deserts all over the world, it showcases the adaptations of plants to arid environments...

Lightning Strikes, Not Once, But Many Times

Unlike light, lightning does not travel in a straight line. Instead, it has many branches. These other branches flashed at the same time as the main strike. The branches are actually the step leaders that were connected to the leader that made it to its target...

Are You My Dinner Tonight?

A T-Rex has 24-26 teeth on its upper jaw and 24 more on its lower jaw. Juveniles have small, sharp blade-shaped teeth to cut flesh, whereas adults have huge, blunt, rounded teeth for crushing bones. Is the T-Rex a bone-crushing scavenger?

Contrail Streaking Across A Golden Sunrise Sky

8:55 AM  , ,  

Singapore
August 2013
A contrail streaking across the sky at sunrise...

More photos are available on Merlion Wayfarer Goes Green's Picasa at :
Natural Phenomena - Clouds


Read More

Are You My Dinner Tonight?

6:21 PM  , , , ,  

Titans of the Past - Dinosaurs and Ice Age Mammals
Science Centre
West, Singapore
24 October 2013

Last night, Merlion Wayfarer travelled back in time to the Cretaceous Period 65 million years ago...
 
Hail! A "dragon" from the past...

A herd of Triceratops - from Baby Tri all the way to Grandpa Tri...

Watch out! Don't breathe... Don't move at all!

More gigantic displays coming soon... Keep a look out!




Read More

There Is A Mountain In Front Of Me!

3:54 PM  , , ,  

Singapore 
23 October 2013

Merlion Wayfarer's recent posting on mushrooms and flying saucers in the sky ("The Mushroom That Became A Flying Saucer At Sunset") created so much excitement among her friends that she decided to investigate the rare occurrence of these clouds...

Mushrooms & Flying Saucers

Lenticular clouds (Altocumulus lenticularis) are stationary lens-shaped clouds with a smooth layered appearance that form in the troposphere, normally in perpendicular alignment to the wind direction. Lenticular clouds can be separated into altocumulus standing lenticularis (ACSL), stratocumulus standing lenticular (SCSL), and cirrocumulus standing lenticular (CCSL). Due to their shape, they have been offered as an explanation for some Unidentified Flying Object (UFO) sightings.


Where stable moist air flows over a mountain or a range of mountains, a series of large-scale standing waves may form on the downwind side. If the temperature at the crest of the wave drops to the dew point, moisture in the air may condense to form lenticular clouds. As the moist air moves back down into the trough of the wave, the cloud may evaporate back into vapor. Under certain conditions, long strings of lenticular clouds can form near the crest of each successive wave, creating a formation known as a "wave cloud." The wave systems cause large vertical air movements and so enough water vapor may condense to produce precipitation. The clouds have been mistaken for UFOs (or "visual cover" for UFOs) because these clouds have a characteristic lens appearance and a smooth saucer-like shape.

Lenticularis often shows iridescence if it is near or in front of the sun. Bright colors (called irisation) are sometimes seen along the edge of lenticular clouds...


Lenticular clouds are usually spotted among mountain ranges...

(Source : Wikipedia)

There are some cases where these clouds have also been known to form where a mountain does not exist, but rather as the result of shear winds created by a front.

(Source : WordPress)

In this case, the front was created by a thick dense "mountain" of cumulus clouds amid a sky filled with higher-level alto and strato clouds...

The rare Flying Saucer in Singapore...


The Cloud Cap

Cap cloud or cloud cap is a stratiform, orographic cloud that hovers above or over an isolated mountain peak, formed by the cooling and condensation of moist air forced up and over the peak and lenticularly shaped by horizontal upper level winds. The cloud appears to remain essentially stationary.

The term is also occasionally used for Pileus (Latin for cap) cloud. Unlike the mountain cap cloud, the pileus is essentially an accessory cloud, that appears as a smooth cap, or hood above a cumulus or cumulonimbus cloud. The cap forms when a humid layer is lifted to its dew point above a rising thermal. This may later penetrate the pileus, which will eventually be absorbed into the main cloud body. Sometimes several layers of pileus form above one another.


The Shadow

A cloud shadow occurring at sunset is formed when light is cast from a low level cloud onto a higher level cloud. During a sunset, the sun's rays will sometimes be blocked by a cumulus cloud below the horizon. Like any shadow, a darkened area will form. These types of cloud shadows are especially dramatic and can appear as darkened rays of light, sometimes referred to as crepuscular rays, as they appear in the same direction as the setting sun.



More photos are available on Merlion Wayfarer Goes Green's Picasa at :
Natural Phenomena - Clouds

Sources


Read More

The Mushroom That Became A Flying Saucer At Sunset

5:02 AM  , , ,  

Singapore
15 October 2013

An amazing thing happened at sunset today...

First view of this evening's sunset - A remote mushroom cloud with pink, purple and blue streaks  which gradually blossomed into another spiral mushroom cloud...

Doesn't this look like rock formations?

Delicious bubble gum-coloured wisps...

Minutes later, this huge left-angled shadow was formed. How often do you see an upward-casted shadow?

This shadow became a taller and thinner diagonal as the sun sank lower behind this huge cloud mass...

Upon zooming, see the fascinating wind-blown streaks?

This mountain top seems to be forming a cap...

Which morphed into a flying saucer which disappeared into the dark of twilight...



More photos are available on Merlion Wayfarer Goes Green's Picasa at :
Natural Phenomena - Clouds

  

Read More

Fair Weather Clouds

1:41 AM  , ,  

Singapore
24 August 2013

Cirrocumulus stratiformis clouds faraway up in the sky which foretell fair weather for the next half day...



More photos are available on Merlion Wayfarer Goes Green's Picasa at :
Natural Phenomena - Clouds

Read More

New Moon Shining Through

9:58 PM  , ,  

Singapore
10 August 2013

A new moon shining through with the Earth casting a shadow over it...



More photos are available on Merlion Wayfarer Goes Green's Picasa at :
Natural Phenomena - The Moon
  

Read More

Balmy Breeze By The Waterway

11:32 AM  , , , ,  

Punggol Waterway 
North-East, Singapore 
March 2013


An orb-weaver awaits inverted on its web...

A nasty-looking Leucauge Argentina (Silver Leucauge) glares at curious passers-by... 


More photos are available on Merlion Wayfarer Goes Green's Picasa at : 
Arachnida - Araneidae (Orb-Weavers)
 


Read More

An Encounter With The Wolves

11:03 PM  , ,  

North-East, Singapore
September 2013

Among the dozens of wolves spotted...
 Every item on the ground is a potential playground...

The courting ritual between the male and the female with the male waving his front legs up in a dance...

 A close-up of a female with her more muted earth colours...

A few other interesting friends on the pebbles - a Caelifera (Grasshopper), a pair of Diplopoda (Millipedes), an Acisoma Panorpoides (Trumpet Tail) Male...

More photos are available on Merlion Wayfarer Goes Green's Picasa at :

Read More
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)