Marysville sky phenomenon explained: What caused the bizarre ‘hole-punch cloud’?
Nov 12, 2025, 12:05 PM
When Peter Mongillo looked up at the Saturday afternoon sky and saw what appeared to be a massive tear in the clouds above Marysville, he did what any curious observer would do: He snapped a photo and sent it to meteorologist Scott Sistek at the Emerald City Weather blog, demanding answers.
Was it finally the smoking gun proving chemtrails are real? Had the government’s weather modification program gone haywire, accidentally revealing the matrix-like grid controlling our skies? Was it aliens?
“It is not aliens,” Sistek said, perhaps crushing the dreams of countless “X-Files” enthusiasts across the Puget Sound region.
But before conspiracy theorists close their browsers in disappointment, the actual explanation might be just intriguing enough to keep them reading, and it does involve mysterious aircraft cutting through our atmosphere.
The photograph shows an elongated gash carved through an otherwise uniform blanket of clouds, revealing brilliant blue sky beyond. The formation stretches across the frame, hovering above the treeline with the Cascade Mountains visible in the distance. It’s the kind of sight that makes you pull over on I-5 and wonder if you’re witnessing something extraordinary.
You are, actually. It just doesn’t involve little green men.
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The weird phenomenon? A hole-punch cloud
What Mongillo captured is known formally as a “fallstreak cloud” or, more colorfully, a “hole-punch cloud.” And yes, aircraft are responsible, though not in the way your uncle’s Facebook posts about HAARP might suggest.
“They are caused by airplanes that are descending or ascending through a specific type of cloud layer,” Sistek explained during a recent appearance on KIRO Newsradio’s “Seattle’s Morning News.” “When you’re flying around and you cut through the clouds, normally nothing happens. But if you get a very specific atmospheric setup where the plane goes through at just the right angle, it can cut a little hole in the clouds.”
The science, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), involves a process called adiabatic cooling. When an aircraft passes through certain types of clouds, specifically those containing supercooled water droplets that haven’t frozen despite being below 32 degrees, the air around the plane’s wings and body expands and cools rapidly. This sudden temperature drop triggers the droplets to crystallize into ice.
Like dominoes falling in slow motion, these newly formed ice crystals grow quickly, absorbing nearby water droplets and becoming heavy enough to fall from the sky. This creates an expanding hole in the cloud layer that can grow for hours after the aircraft has passed.
“It was probably somebody on approach into SeaTac coming from the north, or maybe it was somebody who was getting ready to go to Vancouver International or even Bellingham,” Sistek theorized, noting that Marysville sits directly under several flight paths.
For those keeping track of unusual weather phenomena, these formations aren’t exactly rare, but catching one in the act requires being in the right place at the right time. Sistek has documented them before in his weather blogs, noting that particularly active air traffic days can create multiple holes that make clouds look like “Swiss cheese” on satellite imagery.
“They’re really cool if you can see them,” Sistek said, adding with perhaps a hint of meteorological melancholy, “It’s sadly nothing extraterrestrial. It’s just aviation at work.”
Still, one pressing question remains that Sistek has yet to address: If planes can accidentally punch holes in clouds, why haven’t we leveraged this technology to guarantee sunny weather for Seafair?
Charlie Harger is the host of “Seattle’s Morning News” on KIRO Newsradio. You can read more of his stories and commentaries here. Follow Charlie on X and email him here.
