Аннотация:It has been shown experimentally that an adverse pressure gradient leads to periodic decelerationof the boundary layer of a plane-parallel flow in an open channel. During the deceleration, the actionof the reverse pressure gradient and friction force forms an instantaneous vertical velocity profile with alocal minimum above the viscous layer between two inflection points. In a thin layer containing the upperinflection point, the plane-parallel flow is unstable, which has been confirmed experimentally: a cylindricalvortex is formed in this layer at a critical value of the reverse pressure gradient when the deceleration cycleterminates.