Cape Town's unusual cloud formation that looked a lot like UFOs is actually common for the South African city, but Sunday's clouds still managed to freak out many people who took to social media.
The clouds, shaped like flying saucers, were seen hovering over Cape Town, sending residents to Twitter to post the pictures.
"Have you seen the alien space craft hovering over the mother city today? Fear not! You are NOT about to be abducted," CNN meteorologist Derek Van Dam wrote on his
Facebook page Sunday. "These are fairly common clouds known as stratocumulus standing lenticularis (or commonly known as Lenticular Clouds)."
"They form when conditions are just right. Air flows along the surface of the earth and reaches some sort of obstruction like a mountain or valley. Probably in this case, Table Mountain, Signal Hill or even the Overberg Mountains upstream from Cape Town," said Van Dam.
Van Dam said the mountain obstruction disrupted the air flow, causing what the meteorologist called wind "eddies."
"When this disrupted air flow has stable moist air within it, a series of large-scale standing waves can develop on the downwind side. Eventually the temperature at the peak of the wave drops to the dew point allowing for condensation and eventually your star-ship enterprise forms."
Still, some didn't know what to make of the out-of-this-world cloud shapes.
It was the second time a mysterious occurrence in the sky created a weekend social media buzz. The U.S. Navy Strategic Systems Programs test of a Trident II missile from a submarine off the coast of Southern California surprised residents when it lit up the dark skies on Saturday, reported the
Los Angeles Times.
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