File:Von Kármán Clouds Flow Off of Mexico’s Coast (NESDIS 2021-04-14 vonkarmaniodimagery2).gif

English: Yesterday, GOES East viewed lovely von Kármán clouds flowing around Mexico’s Guadalupe Island using the satellite's fine detail-imaging visible channel. Named after Hungarian-American physicist Theodore von Kármán, these long chains of spiral eddies can occur anywhere that fluid—or in this case, atmospheric flow—is disturbed by an object. When the prevailing wind is forced to move around the elevated surface of the island, the winds change direction, causing the air, and its subsequent clouds, to rotate into a spiral shape. Guadalupe Island is one of the few places in the world that regularly sees this phenomenon. Von Kármán vortices also tend to pop up aroundJeju Island in South Korea, the Cape Verde islands off of the coast of Northern Africa, and the Juan Fernandez Islands near the Chilean coast. The animated loop was recorded by the GOES East geostationary satellite, also known as GOES-16, which keeps watch over most of North America, including the continental United States and Mexico, as well as Central and South America, the Caribbean, and the Atlantic Ocean to the west coast of Africa. The satellite's high-resolution imagery provides optimal viewing of severe weather events, including thunderstorms, tropical storms, and hurricanes.