What kind of weather phenomena is this over Cannon AFB, NM ?

originally posted by: Zaphod58
a reply to: charlyv

This is most likely 27th SOG doing a chaff drop.

There ya go!. Good support for Bedlam's theory. I guess we have our culprit!

Cool thread. I'm from the area and am here now for a Halloween party. Saw nothing in the clear cloudless sky today.

The fast falloff generally indicates self terminating chaff as well. You can look at the wind direction and look at a polarization differential to see if the thing is long and thin and stretched out by wind, pretty much a cinch if there's a big differential.

The Huntsville guys do this for every mystery blob now.

Thanks to all that responded. The anomaly stretched out over night and fell off dramatically, now indistinguishable from atmospheric clutter. It is interesting that sometimes Doppler radar can show more than just weather patterns and I learned a lot of interesting facts about this area from many attentive ATS'ers.

a reply to: charlyv

Cannon has some rather interesting aircraft operated by the 27th SOG. They do infil/exfil and many other combat related missions.

Hey, those previous chaffs in Alabam....did they blow those test fibers up from the surface ? that would be a bad mess, huh!! rockets at least.....

originally posted by: GBP/JPY
Hey, those previous chaffs in Alabam....did they blow those test fibers up from the surface ? that would be a bad mess, huh!! rockets at least.....

There are specially equipped chaff dropping airplanes, depending on the chaff you use it can come in cartridges or on big rolls (sort of) that are chopped and dropped in varying lengths.

Some chaff is fiberglass, later stuff is cellulose (greener!) and will biodegrade. You also have plain metallized chaff, where the metal is generally evaporated aluminum, sort of like the shiny coating on a space blanket, and terminating chaff, where you have an azo based coating that's light sensitive. Drop it during the day, and the azo goes off in the sunlight, you have a flurry of other reactions and one of them strips off the aluminum into aluminum oxide dust.

They did a big s-t chaff drop over Huntsville a few years back, there was so much dust in the air after the chaff terminated that it left a fog over the valley you could see from the weather cams. It's got a smell to it that's noticeable as well from the azo.