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A few times each year in Santa Clarita, the conditions are just right for these strange clouds to form. They're known as "Lenticular" clouds (Altostratus lenticularis) or "standing wave" clouds, and generally form over, downwind of, or sometimes upwind of mountain ranges.

The cause is interesting... Air (wind) moves much like water - when it encounters surface features (like mountains) it flows up and over them like boulders in a river, generating rapids above and downwind. Lenticular clouds form when moist air from lower altitude is forced up into colder layers of the atmosphere where it condenses, usually at the peaks of the air "rapids". As the air descends the from the peak of the rapid, it warms and evaporates, the result being a cloud that remains mostly stationary while other clouds at lower altitudes (and cirrus at higher altitudes) moves past it.

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