00:55 Amazing Picture of Storm Clouds from Space Meteorologist Ari Sarsalari takes a look at a beautiful picture of a storm cloud taken from the International Space Station.

Thunderstorms are fascinating to observe from the ground, but seeing one from outer space is even more spectacular. The image below, which shows the anvil of a thunderstorm, was posted to British astronaut Tim Peake's Twitter account on Tuesday.

Peake is a flight engineer for the European Space Agency, and he snapped this stunning photo on May 28 from the International Space Station (ISS), where he has resided for the last 169 days .

The anvil is the flat top of a cumulonimbus (thunderstorm) cloud, which stands out remarkably in this photo.

<img class="styles__noscript__2rw2y" src="https://dsx.weather.com//util/image/w/tim-peake-053116_0.jpg?v=at&w=485&h=273&api=7db9fe61-7414-47b5-9871-e17d87b8b6a0" srcset="https://dsx.weather.com//util/image/w/tim-peake-053116_0.jpg?v=at&w=485&h=273&api=7db9fe61-7414-47b5-9871-e17d87b8b6a0 400w, https://dsx.weather.com//util/image/w/tim-peake-053116_0.jpg?v=ap&w=980&h=551&api=7db9fe61-7414-47b5-9871-e17d87b8b6a0 800w" > Pictured here is the anvil of a thunderstorm, photographed east of Somalia, by ISS astronaut Tim Peake on May 28, 2016. (Twitter/Tim Peake) (Twitter/Tim Peake)

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The anvil shape develops from rising air in thunderstorms expanding and spreading out as the air bumps up against the bottom of the stratosphere, the second-lowest layer of the atmosphere. This is due to the air in the stratosphere being warmer than the rising air in the anvil, so the colder air in the anvil is suppressed from rising any further, hence the flat top.

When a cumulonimbus cloud develops an anvil, the associated thunderstorm is quite powerful and capable of producing frequent cloud-to-ground lightning, large hail, heavy rain, damaging winds and tornadoes.

In Peake's Twitter posts, he did not specify which region of Earth the ISS was passing over when he snapped the fascinating picture. However, Dave MacLean informed weather.com via Twitter that the photo was taken east of Somalia.





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