In 2008, Cloud Appreciation Society founder Gavin Pretor-Pinney suggested that the World Meteorological Organization add a new designation to its International Cloud Atlas to describe tumultuous, billowing cloud waves that lack an obvious pattern.
Lenticular clouds can form at the crest of each wave, which explains why you might see them suspended above nothing. In other words, the air will continue to move in waves on the other side of the obstacle. “You take your grandma's Cadillac and drive it over a speed bump, and after that it goes up and down for a while,” cloud physicist Patrick Chuang explained to WIRED.
When a straight-shooting wind runs into an obstacle, it won’t immediately return to its straight path once it clears the hurdle. Though a lenticular cloud often looks like it’s hovering stock-still right above a mountain peak, it’s actually in constant motion: The air warms up and dries out as it progresses downward, and the wind steadily refills the cloud with newly condensed air from the other side. That air cools as it rises, and if it contains enough moisture, it will condense into a flat cloud formation at the crest of the wave. When high winds encounter a tall structure-like a mountain or even a building-the air is sometimes diverted up and over it. True to their name, lenticular clouds are lens-shaped, and they’re also often compared to UFOs or stacks of pancakes.
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