Kinked Vortices

Wow! What a great example of von Kármán vortices! This image, taken by Landsat 8 on May 3, 2016, shows a layer of stratocumulus clouds over the southern Indian Ocean. Poking above the layer is Mawson peak, a stratovolcano (lots of stratos in this shot) on Heard Island, one of a chain of volcanic islands near Antarctica. The wind is blowing to the east near the island, which creates a wiggling tail of air downstream from the island as it flows around. As that tail "flaps", the vortices are spaw...