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Where is it?Central Mali , Africa .
What ’s in the photo?A monumental , jellyfish - form thunderstorm cloud .
A massive Jellyfish-shaped cloud appeared to float above Mali during a 2018 thunderstorm.
Which satellite admit the photo?Suomi National Polar - orbiting Partnership ( Suomi NPP ) .
When was it taken?Sept . 27 , 2018 .
This striking photograph shows an super unusual electrical storm cloud in the shape of a man-of-war floating above western Africa .
From the ground, thunderstorm clouds warped by outflow boundaries look like giant anvils.
The oddly work cloud , which was just about 185 miles ( 300 kilometer ) long , was spotted above central Mali by the Suomi NPP atmospheric condition satellite , which is co - run byNASAand the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration ( NOAA ) . The " chime " of the jellyfish is locate above the city of Mopti , while the " tentacle " reach into Burkina Faso , according toNASA ’s Earth Observatory .
The bizarre swarm was the resultant role of a meteoric phenomenon known as an outflow bound , which is essentially a shock wave of fast - moving melodic phrase that radiates from thunderstorm clouds . escape boundaries , also live as gust fronts , are triggered when stale air from the clouds descends to the surface , according toNOAA . When this movement , known as a downdraft , happens , stale airwave then starts to speedily spread out outward like ripples in a pool , forcing warm gentle wind upward .
" The arc - frame line of clouds is induce by less dense breeze being go up up and over the boundary,“Joseph Munchak , a meteorologist at NASA ’s Goddard Space Flight Center , told Earth Observatory .
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commonly , this creates a large disk of elevated clouds , bonk as shelf or roll cloud , which often looks like an anvil when view from the ground . But in this event , only part of the platter formed because the effluence boundary was part interrupt by wind shear , Munchak state .
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In ironic regions , outflow boundaries can sail up dust and sand from the surrounding landscape , create short - lived walls of particulate recognize as haboobs , according to Earth Observatory . These rubble storm , which usually last just a few minutes , often appear as if from nowhere after thunderstorms and can majorly reduce visibleness and air quality , accord to theNational Weather Service .
leakage boundaries can also sweep up other objects , including insects , seeds and even fowl . When this materialize , the wave of debris can sometimes show up as impenetrable rings in radio detection and ranging images captured by weather satellite , The Washington Post reported .
