Revillagigedo Archipelago

Credit: Credit: Jacques Descloitres; MODIS team; NASA, Posted on: Friday, 28 May 2004, 06:00 CDT Download full size image

A twining tail of clouds trails off of the Revillagigedo Archipelago in this true-color Aqua MODIS image from May 13, 2004. The clouds are forming what is known as a vortex street. Marine stratocumulus clouds frequently form parallel rows, called cloud streets, along the direction of wind flow. When that flow is interrupted by an obstacle, such as this island archipelago, a series of organized eddies, or vortices, can appear within the cloud layer downwind of the obstacle. These vortices have a significant life-span, as can be seen from the mouse-over Terra image from earlier in the day. Revillagigedo Archipelago sits in the Pacific Ocean 720 km (~450 mi) west of the Colima state in Mexico. The largest of the islands is Soccoro, which is shown here. Until about three decades ago, this archipelago was rich with sea life: hammerhead sharks, giant pacific mantas, and yellowfin tuna.

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