Clouds

Clouds are the most obvious features appearing on satellite weather imagery. Close-up views reveal complex and delicate patterns, from crisscrossing streaks and oceanlike waves, to massive storm systems and eddies in the wakes of islands. To many, such as geologists, farmers, and fisherman, the clouds cover up the important information, but to meteorologists these cloud images supply useful and interesting data.

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These unusual cloud streaks called shiptracks are believed to be caused by aerosols and other particles given off by the smoke stacks of large ships.
NOAA Satellite Image

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Cloud eddy off the coast of Morocco. This intriguing feature may be caused by the air flow around the coastline and nearby Atlas Mountains.
NASA Photograph

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Cloud patterns indicate vortices off Guadalupe Island west of Baja, California. Formation of such swirls is related to wind speed and differences in air temperature.
NASA Photograph

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The snow covered Andes Mountains of Chile poke through a solid cloud deck.
NASA Photograph

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Clouds completely obscure the view of the Earth in this scene taken by a camera mounted on the Shuttle Pallet Satellite (SPAS), a European Space Agency payload carried into orbit by the Space Shuttle.
NASA Photograph

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The sun highlights thick clouds in this Apollo view.
NASA Photograph

Storms

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View of a thunderstorm over the Soviet Union photographed by U.S. astronauts on the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project in 1975. The Soviet Soyuz spacecraft is in the upper left.
NASA Photograph

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GOES satellite view of Hurricane Allen in the Gulf of Mexico in the summer of 1980.
Courtesy of National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service, NOAA

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Perspective view of Hurricane Mitch on October 26, 1998.
Courtesy of Laboratory of Atmospheres, NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center

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Two Pacific storms are visible on a GOES satellite image from July 1978.
Courtesy of National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service, NOAA

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GOES-8 infrared image of Hurricanes Georges, Karl, Ivan and Jeanne on September 26, 1998.
Courtesy of National Climatic Data Center, NOAA

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Skylab view of tropical storm Ellen from September 1973.
NASA Photograph

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Storm viewed by Apollo 9 crew.
NASA Photograph

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Apollo 9 view of the 1968 hurricane, Gladys, over Florida.
NASA Photograph

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