Like the freshly raked white sand of a well-tended Japanese garden, rows of clouds stream over the Bering Sea from the edge of the sea ice. Called cloud streets, these cumulus clouds form when cold air from the ice blows over the open ocean, chilling the moist air. As the temperature drops, water freezes into tiny clouds, which are arranged in neat rows in line with the powerful sweep of the wind. Though some clouds form over the cracking sea ice on the right side of the image, most are over the unfrozen water. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite acquired this image on January 20, 2006.

NASA image created by Jesse Allen, Earth Observatory, using data obtained from the Goddard Earth Sciences DAAC.

Instrument: 

Terra - MODIS