This circular swirl of clouds drifted over Lake Balkhash in eastern Kazakhstan. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA? Terra satellite acquired the image at roughly 12:05 local time (06:05 Universal Time) on May 22, 2018, and the MODIS on Aqua acquired a similar image roughly two hours later. Cyclonic wind flow drew the clouds into the circular pattern, which had a radius of roughly 200 kilometers (100 miles)? small enough that meteorologists would classify it as a mesoscale feature. In contrast, synoptic scale features have horizontal lengths greater than 1,000 kilometers, while microscale features have widths less than 1 kilometer.
This circular swirl of clouds drifted over Lake Balkhash in eastern Kazakhstan. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA? Terra satellite acquired the image at roughly 12:05 local time (06:05 Universal Time) on May 22, 2018, and the MODIS on Aqua acquired a similar image roughly two hours later. Cyclonic wind flow drew the clouds into the circular pattern, which had a radius of roughly 200 kilometers (100 miles)? small enough that meteorologists would classify it as a mesoscale feature. In contrast, synoptic scale features have horizontal lengths greater than 1,000 kilometers, while microscale features have widths less than 1 kilometer.