Shocking Cloud Pattern: Random Chance, An Unknown Phenomenon, or the Work of the Devil?

 Today I have gotten several emails from folks seeing an unusual, if not disturbing, cloud pattern in the visible satellite imagery.

I mean odd.

As shown below, you can see the object of concern.....a nearly perfect rectangle in the low clouds (mainly stratus and stratocumulus) due west of Baja California


Here is a closer view.   Wow.


What is particularly odd is that the box seems to nearly remain in place over time.  This is not normal.


We have some international experts on low clouds in the subtropics in my department. In the past, several have talked about human intervention to modify such clouds artificially as a tool to reduce global warming.

They assured me that no such experiment was going on and they could not explain this bizarre appearance.

The Guardian newspaper also emailed about it, asking if this feature is the result of global warming.  I assured them that there was no reason to expect that to be the case.  And Charles Mudede, the self-styled "Green Mussolini"  at the Seattle Stranger, also called, suggesting it was a "Wiccan rectangle."   He also noted that it could be related to "Lucifer's rectangle."    

You have to hand it to the Seattle Stranger staff, they are well informed in matters related to the devil and witchcraft.

The truth is that the cloud rectangle is probably just a random natural phenomenon: with enough time a strange geometric pattern is bound to appear.  

But you never know.....




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Time of Year You Can See the Air Move

Image
  Most of the time, you can not see the air move.   You can feel it, but the complex, turbulent motions are invisible to you, except when it interacts with leaves and branches on trees and plants. But for a few weeks of the year, the sky is full of small, cotton-like tuffs that like a natural MRI machine reveals the complex three-dimensional motions of the atmosphere.   Cottonwood season.  And we right in the middle of it.   Being cottonwood aware is of particular value this year.  It reveals the active dispersion and movement of air that makes the outdoors essentially COVID safe, and thus should be of some comfort for those nervous about transmission outside. Cottonwood seeds are embedded in small cotton-like fibers.   A million seeds weigh about 3 pounds.  Yes, each seed and tuff weights about .000003 pounds.   And that fact, plus the cottonwood tuff, means that these seeds fall VERY, VERY, VERY slowly.   So slowly that they are excellent markers for the three-dimensional flow of the
Read more

Why so little lightning in the Pacific Northwest? And a very nice weekend ahead.

Image
During the past 24-hours, there have been a few lightning strokes over the region (see below) but nothing to write home about (see below). It turns out that the Pacific Northwest and the remainder of the West Coast have some of the lowest frequencies of thunderstorms in the entire country (see below). But why?    My podcast provides the answer. And I also give the weekend forecast....and I think most will like what I have to say. To listen to my podcast, use the link below or access it through your favorite podcast service. Some major podcast servers:     Like the podcast? Support on Patreon 
Read more

Strong Atmosphere River Heads into British Columbia and Southeast Alaska

Image
While the Northwest has been drier than normal, it has been drenching wet a few hundred miles to the north. An unusually strong atmospheric river ....a long current of moisture stretching southward to the subtropics...has been in place for days, bringing large amounts of water vapor to Alaska.   And the atmospheric river will be in place for several more days, slowly moving southward. To illustrate, the scale and beauty of the atmospheric river, here is a water vapor satellite image for 11 AM today. The lighter areas have more water vapor.  You can see the current of moisture extending from near Hawaii into central BC.  This current is the result of low pressure over the Gulf of Alaska and high pressure offshore of California.   A forecast of total water vapor content in the atmosphere for 11 PM tonight shows a healthy atmospheric river (white and blue colors indicate the higher amounts of moisture). As this atmospheric river slams into the mountainous West Coast, the air is forced to
Read more