Swaddled in clouds

Everything is connected, and in case you’ve been having doubts lately, here’s a cool reminder.

It comes in the form of a hypnotic animation from the National Center for Atmospheric Research – a global model of atmospheric water vapor moving around the Earth.

Watch as westward-plodding tropical clouds hiccup into the subtropics. From there, raging easterlies whip them into cotton candy to be spun across the oceans. Eventually, pale tendrils will sweep across the continents, turning orange in the model as they rain themselves out.

It’s fascinating to watch the atmosphere as it placidly churns out weather. Especially when a late-fall storm is whipping golden maple leaves, branches and all, into the side of surf.bird.scribble’s Cape Cod beachhead. Rarely has “there’s more where that came from” resonated this way.

Check the movies here (QT and mpeg). You can watch a whole year or choose a month at a time if you don’t want to take on such a large file. Thanks to John Chiang for pointing me here.