By NanaimoNewsNOW Staff

Fallstreak hole captivates Nanaimo cloud watchers

Jan 28, 2019 | 4:22 PM

NANAIMO — The normally cloudy skies over Nanaimo briefly looked like they were pierced by a hole punch.

It’s called a fallstreak hole and it stretched for several kilometres over Nanaimo on Monday, Jan. 28. Numerous photos were sent to NanaimoNewsNOW and it captured peoples attention from all over the area.

Environment Canada meteorologist Armel Castellan said the effect is caused when super cooled water is forced to crystallize when hit by certain particles in the air. The streaky, wispy clouds inside the hole is the now crystallized water and the hole around it is where those droplets were.

“It’s very spectacular because it happens so quickly,” Castellan said. “You get this very interesting geometric shape in what’s otherwise a very flat and boring cloud.”

Fallstreak holes can sometimes be as large as the City of Vancouver and actually be mistaken for clear, cloudless skies.

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“They’re rare enough that the internet explodes with great citizen science photography like we saw today,” Castellan said. “Sometimes you’ll get a couple in a year and other times you’ll go a few years without seeing them.”

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