Geeky But Wicked Cool NASA Video Shows Sea Salt, Smoke And Hurricane Interaction

An image from NASA's visualization of aerosols in the
atmosphere during the hurricane season. The blue and
white swirls over the oceans are hurricanes and other
storms concentrating sea salt in the atmosphere. The ghostly
white stuff in western North America is smoke from wildfires.

I just came across a cool visualization video that shows how aerosols in the atmosphere such as sea salt, smoke from wild fires and dust from the Sahara Desert interact and move around the world.

I know, I know, it sounds just a bit dull and science-y, but definitely watch the video at the bottom of this post. It's mesmerizing. Even to people who aren't weather geeks.

Says NASA:

"This visualization uses data from NASA satellites, combined with mathematical models in a computer simulation (that) allows scientists to study physical processes in our atmosphere. By following the sea salt that is evaporated from the oceans, you can see the storms of the 2017 hurricane season."

That is perhaps the most striking feature of the video. You can see high concentrations of salt gathered up in strengthening and strong hurricanes like Harvey, Irma, Maria and Ophelia.

A unique feature of Ophelia that you can see in the video is how it sucked up sea salt, like all hurricanes do, but also Saharan dust and smoke from deadly wildfires in Portugal, and that helps explain the odd smoky skies over Britain as Ophelia and its post-tropical remnants blustered through.

Another fascinating part of the video is how you can see wildfires break out in western and northern Canada, and in the western United States, then watch the smoke blow across the continent and over to  Europe and Asia.

The erupting wildfires are seen as dense pinpoint plumes of smoke before the smoke and ash disperse over wide areas.

The video sure helps explain why the sky was so often hazy and smoky over Vermont in August and September. A lot of wildfire smoke blew our way.

Smoke from the increasing trend of wildfires is raising health concerns as all the additional smoke from longer and more intense fire seasons is affecting human health, especially in areas relatively close to the fires.

You'll probably want to watch the video repeatedly to catch all the activity going on with the hurricanes, salt and smoke.

Here's the video: