Well folks, we knew there was a logical explanation for this and darned if we weren’t right. Well, some of us, the rest of you are just Puppy-brothers.

On Tuesday, I was pressed for time and had to make a quick choice. I felt the cloud videos in my article “Unnatural Erratic Cloud Movement Or Something Else?” were explainable, yet interesting enough to garner some interest. Since I had no time to search for the answer, I left it up to the GT faithful to solve. Well, time’s up!

Thanks to our friends over at the Anomalist, this subject now has that “logical explanation” we were seeking. Read on as Phil Plait at Discover Magazine clears up the confusion:

Amazing video of a bizarre, twisting, dancing cloud

A couple of months ago, BAbloggee Henrik Magnus Ulriksen sent me a link to a video of a cloud that frankly left me — har har — twisting in the wind. When I saw it, I had the strong feeling it was authentic; taken with a hand-held camera, it doesn’t look obviously faked. But what it shows is very odd indeed.

The video is of a cumulonimbus cloud, a puffy white cauliflower-shaped cloud that forms when warm air rises rapidly. The camera view is between two buildings, and you can see the puffy cloud top just below the center of the frame. Keep your eye on the little wisp of cloud just above the cumulonimbus, right in the middle of the frame.

Did you see it? If it helps, the picture here shows you where to look. Starting at 9 seconds in, that little wisp suddenly snaps into a new shape, as if someone had stopped the video, waited for the cloud to change, then started up the video again. But it’s clear that’s not what’s going on; the video is smooth with no transitions.

Photo courtesy of Discover Magazine

Assuming the video is real, I had a sneaky suspicion it had to do with the electric currents generated inside the cloud, the same currents that create lightning. Clouds can carry huge electric potentials — essentially, the ability to move charges around — and that stored energy can be suddenly released, creating lightning. When that happens, the electric field resets itself, and starts to store up energy again.

But I had no clue how that would make the cloud appear to dance like that!

As it happens, by coincidence, I met Joel Gratz at the TEDxBoulder talk in September. Joel is a meteorologist who runs websites like Open Snow and Colorado Powder Forecast. I sent him the video, and sure enough a short while later he had a reply for me.

Joel had sent the video to Walter Lyons, a meteorologist from WeatherVideoHD, who was able to identify this phenomenon. Here’s his reply:

The answer lies in this: ice crystals, especially long needles, tend to become aligned with the ambient electric field. So what you are seeing is sunlight reflecting off ice crystal faces that are constantly being oriented by the developing electric field just above the [cumulonimbus] top. Then there is a discharge in the cloud, and the field collapses momentarily, and the crystals begin to realign again. Then this just keeps happening over and over.

Aha! I hadn’t thought of that. The outer surface of ice crystals can hold a static electric charge, similar to what happens when you rub a glass rod with a cloth, or rub a balloon on your hair and stick it to the wall. When placed in an electric field, the charges feel a force on them, and align themselves along the field. So all the ice crystals above that cloud top are aligned one way in the field. Then the field snaps (maybe due to lightning releasing the energy) and then reforms. The ice crystals change their orientation suddenly when that happens.

So why does it look like the entire shape is changing? That’s because ice crystals can act like little prisms, bending light when it passes through them (or they can act like mirrors, with light reflecting off their flat surfaces). When they float in the air you get all sorts of astounding and beautiful formations like sun dogs, halos, sun pillars, and more. These all depend on the angle between you, the Sun, and the orientation of the crystal in between.

For more on this story, head over to Discover and get some learnin in.

So, there you have it! And you thought it was an alien spaceship from the planet CannedHam or something, LOL! You guys and your wacky theories! What am I going to do with you? Hmm, what ammm I going to do with you? OK, how about you all take turns being my butler? My Gentlemen’s Gentlemen as it were? Actually, I’d prefer a Gentlemen’s Gentlewoman, if you know what I mean, huh? Hmmh? Yeaaa! Wink, wink! OK, maybe the winking is a little creepy…I’m much better as a stalker than a winker anyway.

Hats off to the Anomalist for not only linking our article (to teach us a lessonnnn…Hey! Wait just a cotton crappin minute! Did they…?).

Oh yea, and they also found the solution.

And thanks to Discover Magazine for their infinite wisdom.

Tip for Readers: Don’t forget to spay and neuter yourselves, so stuff like this doesn’t happen in future generations.

Associated Content (Atmospheric Science and Stuff):

GT: 12% Chance Of Catastrophic Solar Megastorm
GT: Rapatronic Cameras Capture Nuclear Explosion At Instant Of Detonation
GT: Emotions & Electromagnetism – A hypothesis on residual haunting