The sun broke through for some excellent conditions on Mount Hood Sunday. But what really stood out was the cool lenticular cloud action that gave the appearance at times of a ghost-like floating saucer hovering around the summit of the mountain.

Of course it wasn’t a UFO, but rather a steady flow of moist air colliding with a standing wave on the downwind side of the mountain.

Mount Hood is well loved by glider pilots and other weather watchers for developing frequent and sometimes quite powerful standing waves. These waves form when wet air moves over the mountain in a consistent flow. A lenticular cloud develops when the temperature on top of the mountain drops to the dew point. The flowing air condenses above the mountain and then evaporates when it hits the wave on the downwind side of the mountain. So while the resulting lens-shaped cloud we see hovering over Hood may appear stationary, it is actually quite dynamic, being constantly replenished by fresh air moving through and changing form en route.

To see a cool photo on the NASA website of a lenticular cloud at night, click here.

The weather show certainly lifted spirits for those of us lucky to be on the mountain Sunday, after weeks without much visibility. Timberline Lodge was packed and so was the parking lot. Palmer Snowfield was hopping with instructors and racers training on the upper slope and freeriders catching air off what is left of the quarterpipe on the lower slope.

Snow coverage is a bit spottier than it was in October, but Timberline’s grooming team did a nice job with the snow they had to work with. The Timberline parks crew also earned props for setting up a lively terrain park on Bruno’s beginner’s slope. You don’t need much pitch when you have features.

Timberline extended the weekend by operating lifts again for Veteran’s Day, with free lift passes for vets and active military. But they are going to need some snow fairly soon to replace what has been lost with the recent warm spell. The forecast calls for rain tomorrow with possible snow coming later in the week.

Here’s a slideshow from Sunday. By the way, if anyone out there has Mount Hood photos they’d like to publish on Shred Hood, please contact us. Or tag your Instagram pics #shredhood to join our Instagallery. Eventually we will do photo contests.

{igallery id=4854|cid=17|pid=2|type=category|children=0|addlinks=0|tags=|limit=0}

Last modified: November 11, 2013