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Clounds off the CA Coast


Subdeacon Joe

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Pretty cool photo. It embiggens when you click on it.

 

http://eoimages.gsfc.nasa.gov/images/imagerecords/80000/80930/california_tmo_2013104_lrg.jpg

 



On April 14, 2013, the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra
satellite observed a striking cloud formation off the California coast.
A cloudbank hugged the coastlines of California and Baja California,
spanning hundreds of kilometers north to south and east to west. Within
the cloudbank was an arc of mostly clear sky. Curving toward the
southwest, the arc extended more than 1,000 kilometers (600 miles) over
the Pacific Ocean.



Bob Cahalan of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center explains that the cloudbank consisted of stratocumulus clouds,
and the arc was probably a wake caused by an obstacle to air flow,
perhaps San Clemente Island. Islands that are tall enough can easily
interrupt air flow over the ocean, and when clouds are present, they
make such disruptions visible in photo-like imagery. Wakes from the Juan Fernandez Islands off Chile provide another example of this phenomenon.



NASA image courtesy Jeff Schmaltz, LANCE MODIS Rapid Response Team at NASA GSFC. Caption by Michon Scott with information from Bob Cahalan, Goddard Space Flight Center.



Instrument: Terra - MODIS

 

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I remember laying in the grass looking up at the clouds and seeing the faces and images they made up. I still do that! I shoulda been a professional cloud watcher for NASA!!

 

Rye :)

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