Start Date: End Date: Published Date Data Date
Data acquired August 28 - 28, 2003 1100 x 850 142 KB - JPEG
Data acquired August 28 - 28, 2003 2200 x 1700 470 KB - JPEG
Data acquired August 28 - 28, 2003 4400 x 3400 1 MB - JPEG
Here´s a nice image to show your professor in Cloud Appreciation 101 class. This true-color scene shows a deck of marine stratus clouds over the South Atlantic Ocean somewhere off the west coast of Angola, Africa. Stratus are low, relatively flat clouds, up to 1,980 m (6,500 feet) in altitude, that generally spread out to form a layer over a large region. Stratus cloud layers often form along coastlines.
Notice the grooved pattern running from upper left (northwest) to lower right (southeast) through the marine stratus clouds in this scene. It is unusual to see such sharp boundaries in clouds, particularly when they extend in such a regular pattern for such a long distance. So far, consensus is the patterns cannot be due to gravity waves, as the scene is not over land, nor are they due to an air mass advecting horizontally through the cloud deck. So the question remains: What made this pattern?
Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Rapid Response Team, NASA/GSFC
Published September 4, 2003 Data acquired August 28 - 28, 2003