James Leroy Wilson's one-man magazine.

Thursday, March 04, 2010

Contrail Sighting

UPDATED 3-5-10 below

Where I live, there is very little air traffic overhead. By latitude, I live north of every major American metro area except Seattle (almost 2,000 miles away), and even of large eastern Canadian urban areas (Montreal is on the same parallel as I). So although I live in the Midwest, this isn't really "fly-over country" in that planes going from major airport to major airport are not constantly crisscrossing over my head.

But this morning, on a completely cloudless day, I noticed outside my window the intersection of contrails from two curiously low-flying planes. I went out to the back yard. In varying directions and different heights, I spotted at least a dozen such trails, and two planes in the air. Several of these trails are expanding to become "clouds." As I write, I see two more planes forming yet two more trails outside my window. I suspect that by late afternoon this cloudless day will become hazy.

Update 3-5-10: Today was cloudless, but there was a definite haze. Yesterday, aside from and before I saw all the contrails, the sky was blue; today it was a much whiter shade of blue. Didn't see a plane in the air, whereas yesterday there was always at least one in the sky every time I looked.

1 comment:

  1. I have noticed such things before. I always thought it curious. "Vapor trails" are ice crystals that disperse and vanish. Hmmm.

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