Problem
You are a passenger in a window seat of a commercial aircraft currently flying at 39,000 feet. You look out the window and observe a solid layer of altostratus covering the sky about 20,000 feet below you, stretching as far as you can see. A minute later, you see a distinct hole in the cloud layer, with some stray fall streak cirrus clouds directly above the hole. Synthesize and apply related concepts from Module 4 regarding precipitation processes to explain how the visible hole in the cloud layer was produced.