Image of the week: Cloud patterns near the Canary islands

Watching our Earth

This week’s image of the week focuses on wave-like cloud swirls southwest of the Canary islands.

Last Updated

24 April 2025

Published on

24 April 2025

The cloud patterns are known as von Kármán Vortices and are formed over the ocean when islands disrupt the wind flow. The strength of the wind affects the patterns of the swirls.

Von Karman vortices are named after Theodore von Kármán, the pioneering Hungarian-American physicist and aeronautical engineer.

Von Karman vortices

This image was captured by the Flexible Combined Imager (FCI) instrument onboard EUMETSAT’s Meteosat-12 satellite on 21 April 2025.

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