Volcanoes!
I am blogging about volcanoes today because these pictures are just awesome, and if you look closely, you can see some meteorological processes at work.
The volcano in the middle is the Cleveland Volcano. It is part of the Aleutian chain of islands that extend southwestward from Alaska. In 2006, this volcano erupted, and some great images of the eruption were captured from the International Space Station and from NASA’s Aqua satellite.
The image above is the Cleveland’s eruption in May, 2006. The top of the image is roughly north, so looking at the direction that the ash cloud is blowing (to the southwest), it is easy to tell that there is a northeast wind. Also notice that the north side of the island has some low level stratus clouds. These clouds are more noticeable in the third image from a higher altitude:
This third image is from the day after the eruption, but you can still see the ash cloud, and if you look closely, you can identify Cleveland Volcano. Also notice the low level stratocumulus clouds north of the Aleutians. These clouds are formed when cold air moves over the warmer water behind a cold front. By the direction of the ash cloud, we already noticed that there was a northeast wind. Notice that the area south of the islands has much less cloud cover. The tall volcanoes disrupt the air flow, mixing dry air aloft with the moist low level air. This evaporates the clouds on the leeward side of the volcanoes. There are also some noticeable swirls in the clouds downwind from the volcanoes… more evidence that the islands are disrupting the air flow.
Posted by on 05/29 at 07:14 PM
