Weather – aircraft contrails visible over Walvis Bay

It might have been hot temperatures on the ground, but extremely low air temperatures high up in the sky played along perfectly this week for passenger airliners to leave contrails or vapour trials in the sky above Walvis Bay (indicated by red arrows).

On Tuesday a passenger liner of Latin American Airlines (LATAM) left a long vapour trail stretching from east to west and visible from very far over Walvis Bay. The airliner was en-route from Johannesburg to Sao Paulo in Brazil. With remnants of its vapour trail still visible, a second airliner, of Delta Airlines en route from Atlanta in the United States to Johannesburg left a vapour trial which crossed with the one left by the LATAM flight.
On Wednesday the vapour trial of yet another Delta Airlines marked the sky above Walvis Bay. In the current cloudless weather conditions it is something to see.
A vapour trial is nothing more than a human-made cloud. The cold air causes water vapour to form and instantly freeze around fossil fuel particles emitted by the aircraft’s exhaust system. These clouds are visible as parallel, white lines forming behind the aircraft.
The tower structure of the St. Matthews Anglican church on the corner of 7th Road and Sam Nujoma Drive in Walvis Bay for-med the perfect foreground on Tuesday for this picture to show the vapour trials.