Q: What causes a hole punch cloud?
A: Hole punch clouds, or fallstreak clouds,
As we look at the atmosphere, sometimes we have a layer of clouds that are high in the atmosphere. But the clouds are still made of water vapor, not ice crystals. You need something for the ice crystals to attach to. Sometimes that can be dust, sometimes it’s pollen, or it can be the particles from an aircraft exhaust coming through the cloud layer.
It’s really something amazing, not seen before the jet age. Now that we have jets aloft running through clouds sometimes very interesting and beautiful things can happen.
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