2009 YEAR IN REVIEW: Strange cloud had people looking up and talking

Many local residents were talking about something strange that happened in the sky over Yarmouth County and other parts of western Nova Scotia Tuesday evening, April 28, 2009.

Many people reported having seen what looked to them like a large horizontal funnel cloud pass overhead. Others have described what they saw as a low, long, dark horizontal cloud that passed over their homes. Sightings were seen between 7 p.m. and 9 p.m. with reports all over Yarmouth County, including such areas as Pembroke, Hebron, Chebogue, Arcadia, Melbourne, Wedgeport, Sluice Point and parts of the town.

As the fast moving cloud passed over areas, it whipped up very strong winds for one or more minutes, bending trees, picking up rocks from the ground and tossing around debris. The winds completely died down after the cloud has passed. People have described it as eerie. “It was a bit odd and it was fairly low to the ground. When you looked up overhead it looked very large and when you looked down the length of it because you were looking down a great distance it got narrower and narrower as it got away from you, so it did look like a funnel cloud in that respect," said Yarmouth County resident Stephen Sollows. "It was very, very large.”

Environment Canada said what people in Yarmouth County were likely seeing was a roll cloud or Morning Glory, as it is also called.

Meterologists at Environment Canada were all abuzz about the ominous, dark, fast moving cloud that passed over much of Yarmouth County between 7 and 9 p.m. on April 28.

Meterologist Serge Deschamps says the cloud seems to be what is known as a roll cloud. The report created quite a stir in the office. “It is very rare phenomena. All the right conditions have to be set up and I guess you had it set up yesterday,” he said. “Everybody has heard about it and studied it, but never actually saw it or experienced it,” he said.

When the tephigram for the Yarmouth area was examined after the cloud’s passage, the anomaly was confirmed. A tephigram provides a 3D picture of the upper atmosphere, providing temperature, humidity and winds.

A dramatic inversion took place at the time, with colder air near the surface, and warm air in the layer above. Meterologists refer to the event as “very stable” “The roll cloud was right ahead of a cold front that was sweeping down across Nova Scotia. Greenwood went from 26 to 16 degrees in one hour,” said Deschamps.

The cloud is also known as a morning glory cloud because it is observed most often during spring near dawn. It is considered one of the world's most exotic meteorological phenomena and is best known from the Gulf of Carpentaria, northern Australia.

The clouds appear as one or more roll cloud formations extending from horizon to horizon, and sometimes measure more than 1,000 km in length, travelling 1 - 2 km. above the earth’s surface.

Despite being studied extensively, the Morning Glory cloud is not clearly understood. The clouds seldom produce measurable precipitation but are almost always accompanied by short-lived, often intense, surface wind squalls, intense low-level wind shear, and a sharp pressure jump at the surface.

In the front of the cloud, there is strong vertical motion that transports air up through the cloud to create a rolling appearance. Air in the middle and rear of the cloud becomes turbulent and sinks. They are reported to travel at speeds of about 40 km/hr, occasionally over 60 km/hr.

Burketown, Australia, annually attracts glider pilots bent on riding this phenomenon.

Morning Glory clouds have been sighted three times in 25 years on Sable Island (June 13, 2003; July 8, 2000, and in the summer of 1976.

HERE'S WHAT OTHER PEOPLE SAID AT THE TIME OF THE MORNING GLORY SIGHTINGS:

A woman from Kings County contacted NovaNewsNow.com to say that she was in her kitchen when a huge gust of wind and dark cloud came over her house around the same time sightings of a mysterious cloud was being seen in Yarmouth County. "The trees in the backyard seemed to bend in two and my lawnchairs, shovel, rake and everything else on the deck and surrounding area lifted to the other side of the yard and deck in a matter of seconds," said Amanda Lewis, who lives in the Kingston/Greenwood area. "I ran out to grab what I could before it disappeared. The wind was so strong I had a hard time opening our side door and could barely walk to the deck."

She said it left as quickly as it came but then 10 minutes later something similar happened again. She said the wind was quite strong and that it was quite frightening.

NovaNewsNow reader Angela Thompson said she and her husband were driving on Highway 101 near the Kentville/New Minas area Tuesday evening around 7:30 p.m. "It was so scary. The air was a brownish colour from all the sand/dirt flying around...The winds were so high we felt like we were driving through a tornado."

She says they had to slow down because they were afraid they wouldn't be able to stay on the road. "It didn't take long to drive out of it, but it was really scary," she says.

Tom Amero is a volunteer firefighter from Plympton, Digby County. “We were fighting a brush fire when the cloud passed overhead, everything flared up instantly,” Amero says, adding when he arrived home that evening his wife told him about what had happened at their home. “She was upstairs in our home when she felt the whole house shake,” he says. “ In less than a minute, our neighbour called to tell her that our trampoline had blown from our front lawn about 50 to 75 feet across our yard and got caught in a tree. She says she thought briefly of taking the kids to the basement for safety but the wind stopped before she had a chance to act.”

Back in Yarmouth, people were just as stunned by what they were seeing.

Sjanna James was on Starrs Road in Yarmouth around 8:30 p.m., just outside the Dollarama. “As we walked to the car it was very calm and just as we were about to get in the car we noticed the cloud rolling towards us in the sky. The wind picked up and whipped the dust around, it was actually quite frightening,” she says. “We stood directly under it as it passed. The sky got very dark and then after it passed the wind dropped back out. We could not see the beginning or the end. It looked like a sideways tornado.”

You can read related stories and see other photos and video by clicking onto:

Fast-moving cloud whips up strong winds in Yarmouth County:

HTTP://www.novanewsnow.com/article-331252-Fastmoving-cloud-whips-up-strong-winds-in-Yarmouth-County-Tuesday-night.html