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When undular bores ripple through the atmosphere, they leave remarkable patterns in the clouds.
Published Oct 9, 2020
The island itself is almost too small see in this image, but it serves as the starting point for the clouds that flow toward the northeast in a giant V shape. Amsterdam Island is a volcanic summit, the northernmost volcano on the Antarctic tectonic plate.
Published Dec 30, 2005
Data collected by a sensor on the Aqua satellite reveals the global distribution of clouds.
Published May 8, 2015
The rise and fall of colliding air columns can make cloud patterns—gravity waves—similar to a boat’s wake.
Published Jul 14, 2016
Air masses passing over the Appalachian Mountains created waves in the atmosphere—and these distinctive clouds.
Published Apr 22, 2018
An open-celled cloud over the Pacific Ocean had a shape reminiscent of a certain circular letter of the alphabet.
Published Sep 27, 2014
A layer of marine stratocumulus clouds off the west coast of Africa displayed some particularly complex wave patterns.
Published May 16, 2020
Dry air surging off the western coast of Africa ran into a wall of moist air over the Atlantic, creating a distinctive line in a marine cloud layer.
Published Feb 28, 2013
Whether a patch of clouds contains open or closed cells offers a clue about whether rain is falling below.
Published Feb 6, 2016
Events on Earth’s surface can affect the development and shape of clouds in the sky.
Published Jan 3, 2017Image of the Day Heat Land Water Snow and Ice Remote Sensing
Extremely cold and wet conditions in the mesosphere have led to abundant noctilucent clouds.
Published Jul 9, 2020
As spring turns to summer in the northern hemisphere, unusual streaks of clouds form high in the atmosphere around sunset.
Published Jun 27, 2019
Polar mesospheric clouds (also known as noctilucent, or “night-shining” clouds) are transient, upper atmospheric phenomena that are usually observed in the summer months at high latitudes (greater than 50 degrees) of both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. They appear bright and cloudlike while in deep twilight. They are illuminated by sunlight when the lower layers of the atmosphere are in the darkness of Earth’s shadow.
Published Aug 4, 2008
Like ripples on a pond, a series of long, circular wave clouds radiate out from the coast of West Africa in this pair of photo-like images.
Published Oct 20, 2007
Actinoform clouds pop up off the western coast of Australia.
Published Feb 7, 2020
High-altitude clouds appeared as far south as the continental United States in early June 2015.
Published Jun 19, 2015
In the northern hemisphere, night-shining clouds seem to be forming earlier and spreading farther each year, as they did in 2013.
Published Jun 25, 2013
These “hole punch” clouds were just as apparent from above as they were from below. This MODIS image shows a number of round holes in a blanket of cloud cover over Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana, and Texas. A few of the “holes” are elongated, with what appear to be smaller clouds inside them.
Published Jan 31, 2007
The rare night-shining clouds seen in this photo are both forming more frequently and becoming brighter, trends that point to changes in the atmosphere linked to greenhouse gases.
Published Jan 27, 2011
Cold and dry air from Siberia typically produce this cloud formation over the sea from November through January.
Published Jan 7, 2018
Patches of open-celled clouds off the west coast of Peru offer beautiful glimpses of the sea—and pointers to where rain may have fallen.
Published Aug 7, 2018
In June 2007, the Space Shuttle crew visiting the International Space Station (ISS) observed spectacular polar mesospheric clouds over north-central Asia. TThe red-to-dark region at the bottom of the image is the dense part of the Earth’s atmosphere.
Published Aug 13, 2007
