A resident of Virginia, USA, saw storm-shaped clouds rushing to the top of the mountain like the image of Van Gogh’s masterpiece.
Amy Hunter captured a scene that looked like a surreal painting while looking at the sky over Smith Mountain in Virginia, USA yesterday. Ripples of clouds swirled like a tsunami across the sky. The clouds form perfect waves, as if there is a sea of water in the air.
Hunter took photos of the strange cloud and shared it on the Mount Smith Photo Posting Facebook page. Most comments from network users say they have never seen this phenomenon. This is a Kelvin-Helmholtz wave, which occurs when velocity distortion occurs in a continuous liquid, or when there is a difference in velocity across the interface between the two liquids.
An example of a Kelvin-Helmholtz wave is the wind blowing across the surface of the water, causing relative motion between the layers of water and air. The instability will be manifested by the waveform created on the surface of the water. These waves can occur in many different liquids and atmospheres.
The cloud Hunter sees is the result of two layers of air with different densities moving at different speeds. They meet in another layer and become unstable due to the change of speed. The above movement forms a swirling pattern.
