Perfect cloud ring flew over Kazakhstan

The study of clouds paid a lot of attention, but sometimes in the atmosphere of the notice is not uncommon amazing education, which is attractive for aesthetic reasons and for research.

Last week, 22 may, MODIS on the NASA satellite Terra image of the annular cloud vortex flying over the Balkhash lake in Eastern Kazakhstan. The image shows that the clouds formed an almost perfect circle.

The MODIS instruments mounted on polar-orbiting satellites get pictures of each part of the Earth once a day. Geostationary satellite INSAT-3DR, operated by the Indian space research organization, is closely monitoring this part of the world and receives a new image every 26 minutes. It helps to fill the gaps in the data.

The satellite "Terra" image at 12:05 local time. Images INSAT-3DRпоказывают that a few hours before the circular formation was associated with the area of convection over the Western Tien Shan mountains.

Clouds swirled due to cyclonic wind flow. The radius of the circle was about 200 kilometres — small enough so that the meteorologists could have attributed the phenomenon to the category of mesoscale. Education SYNOPTIC scale have a horizontal length of over 1000 kilometers, whereas the microscale is less than 1 kilometer.

Translated by «Yandex.Translator»