A peculiar cloud pattern I’ve seen just a couple times.
Clouds in (nearly) straight, (nearly) parallel lines.
It made the sky look like blue and white stripes, and it extended as far as I could see.
What could cause that?
What you saw were probably lenticular clouds (formally known as altocumulus standing lenticular, or acsl). The are among the most interesting of all clouds.
Here’s a photo of vertically stacked lenticulars over Mt. Ranier. Here’s a not-so-dramatic shot that may be more like what you saw.
These clouds are produced by wind flowing over an obstruction (a mountain, or a ridge) and generating waves downwind of it. Such waves often have no clouds, but if the distribution of moisture is favorable clouds will form at the crests of the waves, where the moisture is raised and thus cooled. The clouds stay fixed with respect to the ground, even though the wind may be strong - they are continuously forming at the upwind edge and dissipating at the downwind edge.
Sometimes just a single lenticular is visible, in the first wave downwind of the mountain. At other times, a whole series of waves form, each of which may be marked by a long white cloud. This sounds like what you saw (what was the location?).
Sailplane pilots can use these waves to climb to unusual altitudes (the current record is over 50,000’). In a long mountain chain wave marked by clouds can be used for very long flights (the current record, set downwind of the Andes, is over 3000 km). The lift can be extremely strong (over 3000 feet per minute) but is always absolutely smooth - much smoother than any other atmospheric condition.
I’m thinking the OP saw something more like this rather than lentic clouds.
Wave clouds, or gravity wave clouds.
Although this doesn’t visually match what the OP saw, I can’t help but post this video
1920s Style “Death Ray”'s picture is the closest to what I saw, but the clouds I saw looked more like normal cumulus clouds, lined up further apart.
Here’s one with rows of cumulus clouds. Cumulus clouds are basically formed by air rising and cooling till it reaches it’s saturation point, at which stage visible moisture forms. This is where the base of the clouds occur. The air continues to rise as long as it is warmer (less dense) than the surrounding air but generally at some point it will reach the same temp as the surrounding air and then stop rising. This is where the cloud tops will be. To get rows of cumulus like you’ve seen, there must be some mechanism that is forcing the air to rise in a series of rows. It could be a series of small standing waves, similar to what causes lenticular clouds but on a smaller scale.
Wikipedia has an article on “cloud streets” which may describe what you are seeing.
There’s also the possibility that what the OP observed was a series of contrails. Sometimes, they do seem to persist while others form, lending a sort of striped appearance.
Yes, that’s what I saw.
Thanks.
Holy popcorn, Batman!
My first thought was chemtrails. http://www.chemtrailcentral.com/