The Earth Story

Orographic cloud over Iceland The melting glacial ice in the foreground provides a beautiful setting for this lovely cloud etched in glowing colours. These formations of water vapour in the atmosphere form when moist air rises above an obstruction, in this case the hills to the right, condenses its moisture, and then sinks on the far side of the topography. Streamers of water vapour indicate the wind direction in that layer of the layer of air that surrounds the thin rind of our planet. Loz Image credit: • Iurie Belegurschi http://on.fb.me/1NHQ086

Nice shot of Fuego (Fire) volcano, Guatemala. As wind blows over the top you can see water vapor condensing into a lenticular cloud, and then the volcano blows ash out through that cloud.

Spectacular shot of clouds pouring off the peaks in Jasper National Park, Alberta, during a storm - air rising over the peaks cools and triggers those clouds.

Orographic cloud over Iceland

The melting glacial ice in the foreground provides a beautiful setting for this lovely cloud etched in glowing colours. These formations of water vapour in the atmosphere form when moist air rises above an obstruction, in this case the hills to the right, condenses its moisture, and then sinks on the far side of the topography. Streamers of water vapour indicate the wind direction in that layer of the layer of air that surrounds the thin rind of our planet.

Loz

Image credit: • Iurie Belegurschi /http://on.fb.me/1NHQ086

Spectacular orographic cloud over Klyuchevskoy In our last post (see http://tinyurl.com/ktcrny2) we shared a photo of an agate with a pattern just like a lenticular cloud over a mountain. Here we present the real thing, forming as air rises and sinks over the Kamchatkan stratovolcano, condensing and re evaporating its moisture as it rises and falls. A tiny plume of volcanic steam from degassing magma is poking out of the top of the cloud. This smoker is the most active on the peninsula, hanging off Russia's far east, and has been erupting on and off all year. Our recent posts on this Siberian volcano:http://tinyurl.com/odfkgvr, http://tinyurl.com/oujvcp7 andhttp://tinyurl.com/qzfrd4d. Loz Image credit: Yuri Demyanchuk/airpano.com