Huge tube of cloud

I saw what looked like a huge tube of cloud floating just below a uniform blanket above rural Oxfordshire, UK, at 7.30 am on 11 December 2007 (see Photo). Anyone know why it formed?

seemed to me an unusual find. on the website, there were given some possible explanations, but we can always argue anyway

so here's the article itself

Its most probably a hole punch cloud, which can form shapes like these. Which is a hole caused by ice crystals from high level clouds falling through a mid level cloud layer. in this case it looks like a layer of altomcumulus has ben punctured. I was going to say it was a tubular cloud (formed by wind eddys) but the colour and position of the sun doesnt add up. If it were below the altocumulus layer it would actually be a dark colour rather than the light colour it is.

Here are some more hole punch clouds. The ones that form a perfect circle are the rarest

www.schools.ash.org.au...

thank you for your reply.. but your link doesn't work, came up as an error

still the shape of the light on the cloud i very straight, without any fluctuations, well mother nature sure knows her job

Cool! A Google Image Search of 'hole punch cloud' reveals some fascinating results.

I found this page with some pretty similar images.

reply to post by OzWeatherman


If there is such an easy scientific expanation then why have most people never seen one?

Are there different variers than in the past couple decade that make this process more common, or even possible.

I have skywatched my entire life and i never saw a "Hole punch cloud"