Noctilucent Clouds

Significant Winter Storm to Bring Heavy Snow and Ice Impacts; Dangerously Cold Temperatures Expands Across the East; Severe Storm Threat in the Gulf States Sunday

A significant winter storm is underway, bringing widespread heavy snow, sleet, and freezing rain from the Southern Rockies to New England through Monday. Extremely cold air will follow, prolonging dangerous travel and infrastructure impacts into next week. Severe thunderstorms may produce damaging gusts and tornadoes across the eastern Gulf Coast states Sunday morning and afternoon. Read More >

Noctilucent Clouds

On the morning of October 28^th,rare noctilucent clouds were visible over Monterey. Noctilucent clouds are thin silvery-blue cirrus-like clouds frequently seen during summer twilight conditions at high latitudes (above 50°) in both hemispheres. These clouds are primarily composed of ice crystals at heights 50-70 miles above the earth's surface. (source) However, the clouds seen this morning were formed by the launch of the NPOESS Preparatory Project spacecraft from Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif.

Below are two images of the noctilucent clouds.