Dramatic Display in the Northwest Skies Today: Super Contrails and Hole-Punch Clouds

I got nearly a dozen emails this afternoon with pictures, mainly from folks around Anacortes and north Whidbey Island to Bellingham, of some very strange cloud formations--namely weird holes in a large deck of clouds.   Here are some examples:

 Courtesy of Tony Bigge

 Courtesy of the Stringmans of North Whidbey Is.

Courtesy of Jason Reid of Bellingham

No...these were not alien incursions into WA air space, but the impact of aircraft passing through a cloud deck of supercooled water (liquid water at 32F or below).   The planes climbing or descending through the clouds caused the supercooled water to turn to ice crystals and fall out, living a circular hole.  These features are also known as "punch hole" clouds and often form in mid-level altocumulus cloud decks.

Now what really got me excited is that the new high-resolution GOES-17 weather satellite actually viewed these from space!  Don's believe me?  Then take a look below!  Absolutely amazing. 

But the fun today didn't end there.  We had one of the most amazing contrail days, with huge numbers of them filling the skies..... check out these NASA MODIS images from around 1 PM.  See all the little lines?  Those are contrails in a high deck of cirrus clouds.

 The air was at or close to saturation and the addition of moisture and particles from jet engines produced the multitude of cloud lines.

A picture from the Seattle PanoCam at 8:10 AM this morning said it all:  contrails, low clouds, and a wonderful sunset--with Mt. Rainier in the distance.  What could be better?

from Cliff Mass Weather and Climate Blog http://bit.ly/2FU46XR