Generally we think of satellites as capturing clouds and various weather phenomena, but they also find many other things worth looking at. Recently The Weather Channel website posted some of the more interesting things seen by weather satellites—and they’re so worth sharing!

Below are three of my favorites along with commentary from Chris Dolce, a Weather.com Meteorologist. To see the entire presentation, go to The Weather Channel site.

These really make me wish I could take my camera into space!

The blue-colored swirl at the bottom right of this satellite image is an ocean eddy. According to Dennis McGillicuddy at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, eddies are huge masses of water spinning in a whirlpool pattern. They often spin off of major ocean current systems. The blue tint is a result of microscopic plant-like organisms called plankton, which grow as a result of the eddy stirring up nutrients from the deep to the surface. This image is from December 26, 2011 around 500 miles south of South Africa. (Image, information credit: NASA/GSFC modis.gsfc.nasa.gov).

Large, violent tornadoes can leave scars on the earth that are easy to spot on high-resolution satellite imagery. The segment of the damage path depicted above is from an EF4 tornado that moved near Berry, Alabama during the Superoutbreak of 2011 on April 27. The damage path was 116 miles long. (Image, information credit: NASA Earth Observatory (EO-1 satellite).

For reference, the far right side of this image is the western coast of Africa. Strong winds blew a cloud of dust from the continent into the Atlantic Ocean. The high-resolution satellite imagery from February 7, 2012 above clearly shows this dust (brown, hazy area) over the far eastern Atlantic and the Cape Verde Islands. (Image credit: NASA/GSFC modis.gsfc.noaa.gov)

Source:  http://www.weather.com/outlook/weather-news/news/articles/satellite-see-more-than-clouds_2012-02-20