The Bighorn Mountains span northern Wyoming and southern Montana and stretch into the High Plains. They are independent from the Rockies to their west but magnificent in their own right.
Rachel Gordon posted the images featured here to the Wyoming through The Lens Facebook group. Several views of the clouds from other photographers were also posted to the group.
“I think everyone should see this beautiful phenomenon,” Gordon wrote in the group.
Kelvin-Helmholtz wave clouds form in environments characterized by strong winds aloft and rising channels of instability off the ground. As the instability channel ascends, it is pushed over by the strong winds above, spinning up eddies.
In this case, it seems likely that the terrain of Bighorns helped force the air to rise through a process known as orographic lift. Some pockets of instability may have developed as the sun heated the ground and rose into much colder air aloft.
A time lapse video of the scene appears to show the waves propagating southward along the spine of the Bighorn Mountains.
Tuesday evening’s wave train was big enough to be seen from weather satellites in space!
Kelvin-Helmholtz instability is not only found in the atmosphere but also in other fluids both on Earth and in space. Such wave clouds in the atmosphere aren’t uncommon, particularly near mountain peaks, but tend to be rather fleeting. Pristine examples are rare.
Tuesday’s spectacle in Wyoming was exceptional for its size and textbook structure. It is reminiscent of another mountain display of Kelvin-Helmholtz waves in 2015 in Breckenridge, Colo.
Read more about Kelvin-Helmholtz wave clouds