USVI-On-Line

For the past few days, I've noticed a plume of "Clouds" to the west over St. Thomas on both the Spice Cam and the Serendipity Villa Cam. It seems pretty consistent over a long period of time, which seems unusual to me. Is there something going on to the west like a fire or volcano or something?

I don't know what natural phenomenon causes that, but it's not unusual I don't think. My last visit was last Feb, and I was religiously checking the cams a good six weeks prior. I started noticing the same thing you noticed. They seemed to always be there on fair weather days, and it was this time of year. I think there is at least one meteorologist posting here so maybe they can tell us more.

Montserrat's Volcano maybe. Don't know for sure just throwing it out there.

I think it is simply a meteorological phenomena. You get easterly trade winds pushing warm and moist air from the surface and uplifted to cooler/drier levels by the terrain. Condensation occurs and, voila, clouds on the western slopes.

I have also seen this in South Pacific islands where there is a large dormant volcano. There is always what I call a "Charlie Brown cloud" hanging over the peak.

So I've been checking out this phenomenon for a couple or three weeks and it seems pretty consistent. In past experience things like this usually end up with a name, ala the "Christmas Swells". Does anyone know if these clouds have a local nickname or perhaps a more scientific name?

Yup....moist air is pushed up by the mountains and creates the clouds that seem to linger in the same area. Our meteorologist scientific term is orographic lifting. This is why there is a wet side and a dry side to the islands. These cloud bands will set up and could dump rain on one particular area, while somewhere else pretty close will stay dry. (It is sort of like the lake effect snow banding in the fact that the clouds stream over the same area constantly all based on how the wind is blowing.) What makes STJ so unique is it could be cloudy with showers at Maho but sunny at Salt Pond, all because of the mountains.

Thanks for the explanation