CPL Meteorology · Practice

Overshooting tops appear on satellite imagery as bright dome-shaped protrusions above the CB anvil. What process causes them and what hazard do they represent?

• A.Overshooting tops form when a vigorous updraught has sufficient momentum to penetrate into the stable stratosphere above the tropopause
• B.Overshooting tops are ice crystal wisps blown upwind from the anvil by the upper-level outflow
• C.Overshooting tops are a radar-only signature used exclusively in numerical weather-prediction model verification studies
• D.Overshooting tops are lenticular clouds formed by mountain wave activity at the tropopause