I came across a narrow streak of clouds in Asia when playing with Google Earth. Does anyone know what that is?
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3$\begingroup$ I suspect it's an artefact of some kind. $\endgroup$– gerrit ♦Feb 17, 2020 at 14:33
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$\begingroup$ @gerrit Not quite. It could be a tropical plume. Transport of moisture from tropics to mid latitudes $\endgroup$– user1066Feb 17, 2020 at 14:41
1 Answer
Given the weather patterns, it looks like Google Earth is generating those cloud overlays from some recent (i.e., the current day) satellite images. That line is suspiciously close to the edge of disc line for Meteosat 8, which is located over the equator at 41.5 °E. I suspect that it's just an artefact of how they're stitching together the various images from geostationary satellites. The satellite zenith angle and data uncertainty get very large towards the edge of the disc, so most products for forecasting and research are clipped to exclude that region.
Image from EUMETSAT: https://eumetview.eumetsat.int/mapviewer/?product=EO:EUM:DAT:MSG:CLM-IODC