This wind pattern map looks like Jabba the Hutt
Digital Reporter
Monday, January 19, 2015, 9:05 PM -
Tyler Hamilton, an eagle-eyed meteorologist at The Weather Network, noticed something a bit strange about a global upper level wind map Monday.
It looks like a face -- specifically, the face of Jabba the Hutt of Star Wars fame -- or maybe Oscar the Grouch from Sesame Street.
While the image has received its share of comments online, mostly about its appearance, Hamilton says there's quite a bit beneath going on beneath the map's surface.
Take, for example, Jabba's pink "eyebrows." Those represent high-speeds winds -- in excess of 250 km/h -- in the highest regions of the atmosphere.
"The 'eyes' are stationary vortices that are common during the winter months, and the 'mouth' is the intertropical convergence zone, or ITCZ," Tyler adds.
All that aside, we're pretty enamoured with Jabba the Wind Map.
See it in motion here.
