Cyclone 'Licks' Portugal Coast in Gorgeous Space Image
By Stephanie Pappas, Live Science Contributor | July 27, 2017 09:22am ET
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An instrument aboard NASA's Terra satellite captured this image of a curl of moist air licking the coast of Portugal on July 16, 2017.
Credit: NASA Earth Observatory
A curling tongue of clouds reaches out to taste the Iberian Peninsula in a new satellite image.
The striking shot comes courtesy the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA's Terra satellite and NASA's Earth Observatory, which released the image Tuesday (July 25). It shows a cyclone, or low-pressure system, off the coast of Portugal. The system produced little to no rain, but pulled dry air from over the land into an atmospheric dance with moist ocean air, forming a spiral, Peter Knippertz, a meteorologist at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in Germany, told the Earth Observatory.
Knippertz told the Earth Observatory that this weather pattern on July 16 occurred during a heat wave, when Portugal and Spain were experiencing temperatures above 100 degrees Fahrenheit (40 degrees Celsius). The heat contributed to the temperature difference between the continent and the ocean.
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