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Where is it?The west coast of the Iberian Peninsula ( Spain and Portugal ) .
What ’s in the photo?A spiraling cloud front hugging the coastline .
A large cloud spiral was spotted nestled perfectly along the west coast of the Iberian Peninsula. Researchers are not sure exactly what caused this unusually perfect shape.
What took the photo?NASA ’s Terra orbiter .
When was it taken?July 16 , 2017 .
This outstanding photo shows an strange cloud helix nestled absolutely along the west coast of the Iberian Peninsula in 2017 .
Non-rotated marine stratocumulus clouds were spotted off the west coast of South America by the NOAA-20 satellite in 2019.
The spiral consist of moist , nebulous air from the sea that ’s been swirl together with clean-cut , dry air travel from the land by a phenomenon jazz as cyclonic rotation — the same mechanism that is responsible for generating tropical storms such ashurricanes , typhoon and cyclone , according toNASA ’s Earth Observatory .
However , in this case , the gyration was much slower and weaker than the rotation during tropical storm , so the nebulous and ironic melodic line did not amply mix together , which prevent a right vortex from forming . This also stopped any clouds from passing over the land . ( The image has been edit somewhat to include more infrared light , so as to accentuate the difference of opinion between the land and cloud . )
" on the nose what have this [ strange ] mid - latitude gyration remains somewhat of a mystery,“Stephen Jospeh Munchak , a meteorologist atNASA ’s Mesoscale Atmospheric Processes Laboratory told NASA ’s Earth Observatory . However , it could have been because of an eddy — a temporary , swirling current of water supply that extends late below the ocean ’s surface , he added .
An extreme heat wave thatswept across Southern Europe in July 2017also created an usually large temperature difference between the cloudy , ocean air and the teetotal , land air . This may have further prevented the two front end from shuffle , helping to make the stunning volute shape . When this photo was taken , temperature in Spain and Portugal were above 104 degrees Fahrenheit ( 40 level Celsius ) , according to NASA ’s Earth Observatory .
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The cloud in the spiral are nautical stratocumulus cloud — common low - lying clouds that unremarkably stay below 6,000 foot ( 1,830 metre ) and can cover up to 6.5 % of Earth ’s surface at any one time , according to theNational Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration ( NOAA ) .
Interestingly , marine stratocumulus clouds normally only come out along the western coasts of Earth ’s land mass , according to NOAA . This is because they forge when cold-blooded water from the bass sea is take to the airfoil by Earth ’s tailspin — also be intimate as the Coriolis upshot — which cool down the aura above and enables water vapour to condense into cloud . Along easterly coastline , the Coriolis effect does not labour cold water toward the slide , which means it does not rise toward the surface .
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The splay cloud in the image stretch out for hundreds of miles and in all probability persist for several days . However , it is unlikely that they released any precipitation , according to NASA ’s Earth Observatory .
Similar swarm cyclones have appeared off the Iberian coast and the western coast of Morocco in the past times but they are not usually as set as the helix in this photo , according to NASA ’s Earth Observatory .
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