Big Belts Mountain Wave (Panorama)

Thursday (Feb 2nd), Sunset – A mountain wave cloud that stretched from Banff National Park in Canada south to the Wind River Range in Wyoming, ignites at sunset as it hovers over the Big Belt Mountains and a frozen over Lake Helena near Helena Montana. This 12-image panorama is really sharp - zoomed into it you can see the details of each peak, canyon and gulch of this mountain range.

Mountain wave clouds are formed when moist & fast-moving air flows perpendicular to a mountain range and is forced up and over the terrain forming these fascinating clouds. The same phenomena is no different than water flowing over a large rock in a river and forming a wave in a rapid. In this case, the rock in the ‘river’ is the entire Rocky Mountain Chain from roughly Calgary Alberta to Lander Wyoming.

The result of these events for folks living on the east or ‘lee’ side of large mountain ranges are warmer than average temperatures and as you may have imaged, breezy conditions. As the air races downhill, the atmosphere is literally compressed and by the rules of physics is warmed. The Blackfoot Tribe call these winds the "snow eater" however, the more commonly used term “Chinook winds” originates from the name of the Chinook people, who lived along the lower Columbia River.