This image of the southern United States from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite is a picture-perfect example of what meteorologists mean when they describe the atmosphere as a fluid. In the center of the image, an airborne river of smoke from fires raging across Alaska is flowing down the Mississippi River corridor and spreading out across the shoreline of the Gulf of Mexico, at the bottom of the scene. Thick smoke hangs over Louisiana (bottom center) as well as Texas, to the west, and Arkansas to the north. MODIS captured the image on July 19, 2004.
NASA image courtesy Jacques Descloitres, MODIS Rapid Response Team at GSFC
