Cloud streets over Scandinavia

This Envisat image captures cloud streets – parallel rows of clouds that align with the wind – and the northern part of the Scandinavian Peninsula, the largest peninsula in Europe, shared by Norway (left and top), Sweden (left of the Gulf of Bothnia seen at bottom centre) and Finland (right of the gulf). The Russian Federation is visible along the right side of the image. Cloud streets (upper right corner) have formed over the Barents Sea due to the mixture of heat, moisture and wind. In this image, cold, dry air masses over the ice are flowing from the north to the south. This image was acquired by Envisat's Medium Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (MERIS) instrument on 5 April 2009, working in Full Resolution mode to provide a spatial resolution of 300 m.