Fascinating Cloud Formations: Unusual Gallery Kelvin Helmholtz Clouds

Kelvin Helmholtz cloud is a special kind of cloud. They look like breaking ocean waves, with the rolling eddies seen at the top of the cloud layers usually evenly spaced and easily identifiable. Kelvin Helmholtz clouds are named for Lord Kelvin and Hermann von Helmholtz, who studied the physics of the instability that leads to this type of cloud formation.

How Kelvin Helmholtz clouds form. A Kelvin Helmholtz instability forms where there’s a velocity difference across the interface between two fluids: for example, wind blowing over water. You’ll often see the characteristic wave structure in this type of cloud when two different layers of air in our atmosphere are moving at different speeds. The upper layers of air are moving at higher speeds and will often scoop the top of the cloud layer into these wave-like rolling structures.