UPPERWEATHER.COM _{-Meteorological Musings}

The terrain induced gravity waves usually stay put. There are a lot of ways that a gravity way can set up. Anything that can perturb the flow of the atmosphere can set one up, but the atmosphere in that layer needs to be really stable. Here is a fairly good explanation.

I have seen smaller ones that move like this induced by thunderstorms, but I have never been fortunate enough to watch one of this size in motion.

Really makes me wonder how common this is. I know the terrain induced ones in Denver and along the front range happen all the time, but it can't be very often that the stability needed for these happens that far ahead of a fast moving cold front. I found a cool satellite loop of one of these cold front induced gravity waves from the Storm Prediction Center. I will keep watching for a good loop of a terrain induced one and post it here. It should not take that long as they happen all the time.