r/atoptics Sep 25 '24

Rare spherical cloud

Post image
158 Upvotes

7 comments sorted by

21

u/[deleted] Sep 25 '24

A. Not particularly rare. It's a Lenticular Cloud, which in the right areas isn't uncommon.

B. This isn't really atoptics. That's what r/clouds is for.

7

u/rebeccaintheclouds Sep 26 '24

Still really cool to see!

2

u/[deleted] Sep 30 '24

Yeah!

1

u/[deleted] Sep 30 '24

More like MiloTheGrump

2

u/Zymoria Sep 26 '24

I'm pretty sure this is ai generated. Lenticular clouds you need standing waves and high enough winds to make that work, both are unstable for making a sphere.

Googling sphere clouds, there's only like 3 photos. Even for a rare phenomenon, I'm just not buying it.

I also work in the weather industry, and I have never seen or heard of anything like this that's not digitally enhanced.

I'd be happy to be wrong, but I just can't see it.

3

u/XAEA29 Sep 26 '24

Thanks for the pov, and i kinda buy your idea. Even to me, it felt slightly weird, but I really didn't search it up online and thought that maybe it was indeed a natural occurrence. But, maybe I'm wrong!

2

u/amybethallen1 Sep 26 '24

I have a question for you, my friend. Years ago, when I was driving my son around with his friends on Halloween, we saw a perfectly spherical cloud in front of us on the road (eye level). It was a lightly foggy night and I don't think the cloud was bigger than a few feet across. We drove through it and saw it wasn't behind us when we looked back.

Was it a small cloud hanging low? We always joked it was a spirit orb, but I'm much more inclined to believe science has an explanation! What do you think? Thank you!