Criss-cross Christmas clouds
Zoom Earth satellite images from the festive season
Dear Church Leaders (and everyone else)
Further to this piece from last month:
I was going to include the content of this short article in the forthcoming Updates (Jan 2025) post.
But I then realised that the data on the Zoom Earth website is only viewable for 10 days. And given that snapshots only convey so much, I decided it was best to put this out sooner rather than later.
If you want to view the data on the website, here is the satellite image for 07:00 on 26th December. The date and time can be adjusted as desired. I recommend scrolling through hour by hour (it only takes a minute or so).
Below are the 07:00 snapshots for the eight days from 22nd to 29th December. I have added the date and time in bigger font to make it easier to see which snapshot is which. The arrows highlight some of the more curious features.
22nd and 23rd December
Normal-looking clouds.
24th and 25th December
Some curious criss-cross patterns, which seem to appear in the early hours of Christmas Eve. Here are eight hourly snapshots from 01:00 to 08:00:
Hmm. I remember reading this book — perhaps as a Christmas present — some years ago:
And I don’t recall any mention of criss-cross clouds.
26th and 27th December
Some more curious criss-cross patterns.
28th and 29th December
Normal-looking clouds again?
It is rather easier to point to the data than to say exactly what is happening, let alone why it is happening.
Some further context can be found in the November sunshine (or not) post, and here in the Updates (Dec 2024) post.
Maybe it’s just a coincidence, but it does seem that air travel has seen rather more disruption than usual.
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Some posts, including a version of this one, can also be found on Unexpected Turns
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