© KIRO
Summer is the season for noctilucent clouds. For sky watchers in the United States, "noctilucent summer" has just begun. On July 14th, a bright bank of electric-blue clouds rippled over the Canadian border into the USA. Greg Johnson of Seattle, Washington, photographed the display over the Puget Sound:
Dustin Guy of Seattle saw them too. "I witnessed the most vibrant NLC display that I've seen in a number of years," he says. "They lit up the water of Lake Washington at 330 AM local time."
NLCs are Earth's highest clouds. They form at the edge of space more than 80 km above Earth's surface, when wisps of summertime water vapor wrap themselves around meteor smoke. The resulting ice crystals glow electric blue in the night sky.
In the 19th century, you had to travel near Arctic latitudes to see these clouds. In recent years, however, they have been sighted as far south as Colorado and Kansas. The spread could be a result of climate change. July is usually the best month for NLCs. Sky watchers in the northern half of the USA should be alert for them for the next two weeks.
Observing tips: Look west 30 to 60 minutes after sunset when the sun has dipped ~10 degrees below the horizon. If you see luminous blue-white tendrils spreading across the sky, you may have spotted a noctilucent cloud.
Comment: Based on our research here at Sott, we suspect that our upper atmosphere is being loaded with comet dust which has a cooling effect causing ice crystals to form. The result is the appearance of noctilucent clouds and other strange atmospheric formations. An increase in the appearance of these clouds and others formations are a portent for what is to come.
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See: SOTT Exclusive: NASA blowing meteor smoke as noctilucent clouds intensify