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loveisamyth 68M
849 posts
3/14/2016 12:03 pm

Last Read:
3/17/2016 1:29 pm

VAN GOGH CLOUDS

Peter Lowenstein lives in Mutare, Zimbabwe. For a few minutes last Friday, he felt as if he were transported from Africa into a painting by Vincent van Gogh. "Just before sunset," says Lowenstein, "a thin band of wavy clouds developed above a cumulonimbus anvil and became iridescent." He snapped this picture.



These clouds, sometimes called "billow clouds," are produced by the Kelvin-Helmholtz instability when horizontal layers of air brush by one another at different velocities. It is widely believed that these waves in the sky inspired the swirls in van Gogh's masterpiece The Starry Night.

The delicate pastel colors of the waves come from iridescence, the diffraction of sunlight by tiny water droplets in the clouds. As the sun set, the colors faded to gray, returning Lowenstein to his porch in Zimbabwe.




Robyn363 83F
3475 posts
3/15/2016 8:14 am

Really unique, I love this picture. As the song goes "I could have told you Vincent, this world was never meant ffor one as beautiful as you". So true.


Maudie1 74F
8151 posts
3/14/2016 12:14 pm

Beautiful picture.