Valley fog in Kentucky, and aircraft “distrails” in South Carolina
GOES-13 0.63 µm visible channel images (click image to play animation)
Two features of interest appeared on McIDAS images of GOES-13 0.63 µm visible channel data (above; click image to play animation) on the morning of 05 December 2012: (1) fingers of valley fog across much of Kentucky, which dissipated as daytime heating and boundary layer mixing increased, and (2) a pair of aircraft dissipation trails (or “distrails”) that first appeared north of Sumter (KSSC) and drifted east-northeastward between Florence (KFLO) and Darlington (KUDG). It is likely that these distrails (highlighted with yellow ‘>’ symbols) formed as aircraft heading to or from Columbia, South Carolina (KCAE) passed through the supercooled water droplet cloud layer, causing glaciation and subsequent fallout of the ice crystals to create the elongated clearing lines.