Morning Glory Clouds over Australia

See the original image at antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov
Original Size: 900x600
Click to see Original Website

Morning Glory Clouds over Australia

antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov �

What causes these long, strange clouds? No one is sure. A rare type of cloud known as a Morning Glory cloud can stretch 1,000 kilometers long and occur at altitudes up to two kilometers high. Although similar roll clouds have been seen at specific places across the world, the ones over Burketown, Queensland Australia occur predictably every spring. Long, horizontal, circulating tubes of air might form when flowing, moist, cooling air encounters an inversion layer, an atmospheric layer where air temperature atypically increases with height. These tubes and surrounding air could cause dangerous turbulence for airplanes when clear. Morning Glory clouds can reportedly achieve an airspeed of 60 kilometers per hour over a surface with little discernible wind. Pictured above, photographer Mick Petroff photographed some Morning Glory clouds from his airplane near the Gulf of Carpentaria, Australia.

Author:
Added: 6 months ago
Current Club:
Sky Shots
Fetching Information from Servers ....
share Delicioius share Digg share Reddit share Facebook share StumbleUpon
1 :

Comments
Please Post Your Comment here, thanks!

You are Anonymous  

Login or Register to add comments!
Recommender: Aribeth
Joined: 8 months ago
Pictures: 6898