Residents in Australia were caught off guard when they saw the sky opening up above them. A large gap, that appeared to be circular in nature opened up and gave residents a unique show, and a slight scare as many were confused by this unusual weather phenomenon.
What the residents in Australia were seeing was a fallstreak cloud. A fallstreak cloud is something almost completely rare, and something that can easily cause a stir, especially on social media. “A fallstreak hole is a circular or elliptical gap that can appear in high- to mid-level clouds,” and it’s caused by “water droplets in the cloud that have yet to freeze,” according to one meteorologist from the Weather Channel.
As the droplets begin to freeze, the ice crystals fall and what individuals on the ground see is a hole in the ground. As the crystals continue to expand and move, sometimes the hole can grow as large as the cloud may seem round – so ultimately what the impact is on the ground is really impressive.
Spectators on the ground said that “this thing looked like something out of ‘Independence Day.’” One thing individuals have learned is that there are plenty of odd-looking-cloud anomalies that can occur on a regular basis, and this is just one of them. Though this is a specific incident is far less common, it’s something that has been reported and documented before.
Sometimes they’re referred to within the science and weather communities as being “hole-punch” clouds and they are exactly the same. However, fallstreak clouds are clouds that aren’t residential to particular parts of the world. In fact, they can form almost anywhere, and while they are quite rare, one appeared over California this year in May.
They’re rare enough to give some conspiracy theorists an opportunity to believe that government weather manipulation was the reasoning for the hole in the sky. However, that simply is not the case. Instead, it is entirely explained by a weather phenomenon, and is something that while being bizarre – is something many can expect to see in areas where a swift change in temperature is felt, or where the weather pattern supports its development.
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