Morning Glory Clouds Over Australia
Nobody knows what causes these long, tubular clouds. They are known as “Morning Glory Clouds” and appear nearly two miles up in the atmosphere and can stretch for hundreds of miles. Although similar roll clouds have appeared all over the globe, the ones over Queensland, Australia occur every spring.
These long, horizontal, circulating tubes of air may form when flowing, moist, cooling air encounters an inversion layer, an atmospheric layer where air temperature atypically increases with height. These tubes and the surrounding air can cause dangerous turbulence for airplanes. Morning Glory clouds can reportedly achieve an airspeed of 60 kilometers per hour over a surface with little wind.
Photographer Mick Petroff shot these amazing Morning Glory clouds from his airplane near the Gulf of Carpentaria, Australia.
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