Skylapse.org: Stratocumulus Undulatus

The animated gif below illustrates statocumulus undulatus, complete with horizontal vortices embedded. This cloud feature formed ahead of a rather unimpressive MCS that moved across the south DeKalb, IL region during the early morning hours of 16 August 2012. I was in the DeKalb wind farm region trying to time-lapse a shelf (which never really materialized) when I noticed unique horizontal vortices embedded within the stratus ahead of the line. The vortex features only lasted about 3-4 minutes before they kinked up and dissipated. I don't think I've ever seen such a formation documented before. Higher-res stills are available from my storm chase blog.

Download gif here.

Purpose

The skylapse.org blog is a collection of video embeds, animated gifs, and other illustrations that reveal atmospheric features that may be normally subtle or elusive in real-time, but come to life when the time-lapse technique is applied. The sole intention of creating the blog was to generate a library of ready-to-use visual atmospheric illustrations for pedagogical purposes. While some of the imagery in the blog is my own, most are derived from video sharing sites and, subsequently, embedded or hyperlinked. Please use the "labels" feature below to quickly find examples of phenomena.