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Altocumulus, Contrail and Iridescence

Altocumulus, contrail and iridescence

Altocumulus, contrail and iridescence all in one photo.

Near Seattle, WA

Bob Harrington, http://www.bobqat.com

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Contrails at sunset, Switzerland

Image: Neil Jones - click to enlarge

Taken 25 March 2011, this sunset was taken after a High pressure system sat on Switzerland and left so much still air that the contrails for an entire day could be seen.

Storm sandwich, hold the Mayo

Image: Jesse Lamsam - click to enlarge

Taken in Rochester, MN in July of 2010. A good summer storm was rolling through – a terrific cloud formation stretched over the downtown area looked like a dramatic moment to me. Mayo Clinic buildings seen off to the right.

Calm before the storms

Image: Ron Dean

Taken 30-April-2011 on Pinnacle Mountain in South Carolina, USA. A slight haze hung over the mountains, but the night proved to be crystal clear, with no moon and many stars. This photo was taken just 2 days after the violent tornadoes had wreaked havoc in nearby communities.

Lake effect snowdrifts

Image: Roger Caiazza

Liverpool, NY is in the lake-effect snow belt SE of Lake Ontario.  What that means is whenever the wind flows across the lake if we are lucky it is cloudy and if we are not lucky it snows.  Because the predominant wind in the winter is from the NW snow is common, clear skies are rare.  On February 9, 2011 we had a rare clear day with a reminder of the previous night’s weather when wind-blown snow nearly filled the path with drifts.

Arcus cloud from a thunderstorm

click to enlarge - image by Scott Gates

Thunderstorm in Summer 2010, Waconia, MN. Backlit by the sun, note the shelf or “arcus” cloud. Read the rest of this entry

Comma Cyclone

click to enlarge - warnign large image

Classic Comma Head Extratropical Cyclone over the Eastern U.S.

This extratropical cyclone shows a classic comma shaped cloud system usually associated with dangerous winter weather. In this picture we are seeing the cyclone in its mature, or occluded, stage, when the storm begins to lose its ability to deepen. Soon this storm will begin to shear into a persistent, cold-core low. This image was taken by GOES East at 1845Z on April 12, 2011. Source: NOAA/NASA GOES Project

Hurricane Earl seen from the space station

click to enlarge

Hurricane Earl: The Astronaut View

The relatively placid view from the International Space Station belied the potent forces at work in Hurricane Earl as it hovered northeast of Puerto Rico on Aug. 30, 2010. With maximum sustained winds of 135 miles (215 kilometers) per hour, the storm was classified as a category 4 on the Saffir-Simpson hurricane scale as it passed north of the Virgin Islands.

Read the rest of this entry

Satellite Imagery of Near-Record Flooding Along Mississippi and Ohio Rivers

These two false colored images from the NASA Terra satellite show the Cairo, IL region on April 28, 2011 and April 29, 2010. The differences are stark. Blue colors indicate water, green and brown is dry land. MODIS, the visible and infrared sensor on Terra, is the precursor to the visible and infrared sensors to be flown on NOAA’s future geostationary and polar-orbiting satellites, GOES-R and JPSS.

As of April 29, 2011, the National Weather Service lists 369 locations around in the country as flooded, based on river gauge measurements. Read the rest of this entry

Tornado tracks of the April 27-28, 2011 tornado outbreak

Bright reds, oranges and yellows show tracks of where rotation was strongest as detected by NWS Doppler radars during the April 27-28, 2011 tornado outbreak. - click to enlarge

NOAA’s preliminary estimate is that there were 211 tornadoes on April 27-28, 2011. Read the rest of this entry

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