Unique clouds east of Florida spotted on satellite

A strange-looking cloud cluster appeared on the satellite images between Florida and Bermuda. They are called an actinoform clouds, which are not very common around our area.

Unlike the random shapes of many clouds, this class of low altitude clouds are very organized into classic cloud signatures that make them stand out from others.

Sometimes they appear with a flower-like structure or resemble spokes-on-a-wheel, as in the tweet below, with radiating arms called actiniae.

They develop when warm air overlays a cooler water surface called an atmospheric inversion where stratus or stratocumulus clouds are common.