A rare display of lenticular clouds could be seen from Bondi Beach on Wednesday morning.

As the sun rose over eastern NSW on Wednesday morning, a layered saucer-shaped cloud formation could be seen hovering to the south of Bondi Beach.

Image: Lenticular cloud spotted to the south of Bondi Beach on Wednesday, May 3, 2023.

If it had happened one day later on May 4th, some may have thought it was a clever Start Wars Day stunt. However, it was simply a solitary lenticular cloud caused by mountain waves flowing off the Blue Mountains.

Mountain waves, as the name suggests, are waves of rising and sinking air that are often caused when wind flows over a mountain range. Under certain conditions, small areas of cloud can form at the crests of each wave, on the leeward (downwind) side of the mountain range.

This is what happened on Wednesday morning. Pre-frontal westerly winds flowing across NSW in the early hours of Wednesday were forced to rise over the Blue Mountains, allowing a lenticular cloud to form over the Illawarra coast. This lenticular cloud then moved further north and could be seen from Bondi as the sun rose.

Image: Satellite image showing the small lenticular cloud near Bundeena at 7:10am AEST on Wednesday.

Lenticular clouds are also known to occur near other mountains in Australia, including the Apls in Victoria and NSW, and kunanyi / Mount Wellington in Tas.

Image: A lenticular cloud near Mount Buller, Vic in August 2021. Source: @johnelehphotography / Instagram