Clouds

[rowan]

I was poking around online today, and came across this article on wired about all sorts of weird clouds. Now, I think most people get the basic clouds in middle school earth science or whatever, but here are some really cool things that happen with clouds -- seen from space. When you think of clouds from space, you think mostly of hurricanes and stuff. Or at least I do. But there are lots of other neat things you can see from space that you can't really see that well from Earth. Here you go! As far as I can tell the descriptions of why they form are pretty accurate (although I was just skimming).

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/ ... ry-clouds/

One of my friends said that she thought the anvil cloud ought to be renamed UFOs, but I think that lenticular clouds look more like UFOs from the ground. Here are some lenticular cloud pictures that look like flying saucers:






Above images from Astronomy Picture of the Day website

Mmmm....fluid dynamics! (No, really it's not that scary! doh! Don't run!)

[Astrid]

I loved both of the links you provided. Beautiful...wow!

It's amazing what our earthbound eyes do not get to see. This is one more reason why I love the science/technology that allows us to look back at Earth from space. :)

[Mathmo]

I love that third picture. It makes me think of The Gods Themselves by Asimov ... that cloud looks just how I imagined the beings from the parallel universe.

[Bork]

That's so awesome!! I love fluid dynamics.

[Nachos]

Clouds are funky. I sometimes take pictures of them from airplane windows.

[helium]

We get lenticular clouds all the time around here because of the one large mountain standing on it's own. People srsly believe that they're spaceships/cover for spaceships for the Lumerians, the aliens that live in a city of gold down inside the mountain. There's a religion founded on it and everything.

But they are really pretty, and usually you can tell when we're going to get some bad weather because more of them show up.

[radagast]

I'm with Nachos. I love to take photos of clouds from airplanes. Where I live (Kansas) we also have lots of really neat big thunder boomers in the spring and summer, a cloud photog's delight.