A lot of strange things are happening in Turkey lately.
On 19 January 2023, just after dawn, a huge orange lenticular cloud - resembling a UFO, according to British newspaper The Guardian - hovered for more than an hour over the city of Bursa, in the north-west of the country. A lot of horrified citizens captured the images on their cameras and are still wondering what exactly this was.
The Guardian states that lenticular clouds are known for their curved, flying saucer-like appearance and are usually found at altitudes between 2,000 and 5,000 metres. However, it has not done its homework properly or possibly not at all.
Lenticular clouds or gravity clouds, mountain clouds or else lens clouds ( Altocumulus lenticularis ) usually form right next to or near high mountain ranges.
When the wind blows against a mountain with considerable force, the air is forced to rise. At the back of the mountain, the air then descends again.
Such a rising motion propagates high above the level of the mountain. Air layers higher in the atmosphere cool during this rising process and sometimes become saturated with water vapour, allowing clouds to form. Descending further up, the air becomes warmer again and becomes unsaturated. The clouds then dissolve.
When an airflow collides with a topographical barrier (e.g. a ridge), the airflow deflects upwards on the windward side. On the other side of the ridge, on the leeward side, gravity pulls the air down again. In the process, the air will flow further down than equilibrium (the original altitude). This is an " overshooting " in which an oscillation or undulation is created. This undulation will expand on the leeward side.
These waves are best formed when a stable atmosphere is present above the barrier so that the deflecting air on the windward side cannot rise to higher air layers.
In addition, there should be a moderate to strong wind blowing strongly. There must also be enough moisture in the air and waves must be large enough for the air to cool and the moisture to condense. Then but only then can a lenticular cloud form.
Due to multiple layers of air above each other condensing at different heights, gravity clouds can have a layered appearance and look like stacked pancakes or a flying saucer.
In Bursa, however, there are no high mountains, at most a few hills that could however not produce lenticular clouds in any possible way. If it would be possible, residents would have seen this phenomenon before but they saw if for the first time ever.
On 1 January 2023, barely 5.8 ml of rain/m2 fell in the region. The average temperature was +1% during the night and + 4.8% through the day. There was virtually no wind that day which also immediately explains why the cloud in question lingered at the site for so long.
Moreover, this peculiar cloud is very strongly coloured. No explanation is given for this by any authority. After a good hour, the cloud had disappeared.
Below is a picture of the city of Bursa.
Is this a natural phenomenon, a 3D hologram or a manufactured cloud ?
Who will say ?
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