posted 07-11-2001 05:40 PM            

I recently flew back into the UK from Japan in a window seat and the last
hour of the flight over Denmark, the North Sea and Eastern England produced
a large variety of different cloud patterns. The weather in UK was hot and
thundery and the cloud cover was broken up but just about all the types and
variations of cumulus, stratus, nimbus and cirrus were in the sky at some
point in the hour. There were some active storm anvils and hammerheads as
well.

What caught my eye was high level cirrus/ cirro-stratus in several places
above the plane (about 25,000 feet I'd guess) that had long dark streamers
of what looked like rain coming down from them onto cumulus/ cumulo-nimbus
clouds below (it was like the effect under a nearby storm cell dropping
heavy rain). As far as I could tell this wasn't a shadow effect although the
clouds were 20 or so miles away I'd estimate.