Damavand Cloud Cap

In this picture, you can see the beauty of Damavand Peak with its cloud cap.

How do you think these beautiful clouds appear on the top of high peaks?

Damavand Cloud Cap

Damavand from the International Space Station / French Astronaut

This mountain has a cloudy hat in Iran! Astronauts present at the International Space Station continually cross the Earth. This time, passing through Iran they have taken an impressive image of cloud cover on one of the mountains.

Damavand Cloud Cap

Cloud caps often take shape on the top of the individual mountains. These clouds are floor like and due to the sudden drop in temperature they take form on the high peaks. Temperature drop causes freezing of the humidity in the air. With the Rotational movement of the air around the summit, they appear like a cloud.

scientific analysis

After having an impact with the hillside, the airflow will climb the mountain, due to the altitude increase it will suffer a temperature drop. This process happens in part a-b in the picture below. Due to the air cooling to the new saturation point, the vapor content of the air can not remain in the form of gas. So it becomes very droplets of water or cloud. It’s like what happens to the air that comes out of our mouth in winter. After that, the airflow will continue to reduce energy levels to somewhere around the peak. During this process, condensation energy released by droplets of water increases the temperature of a balloon formed by fine droplets or a cloud of rain. The airflow will fall back to the hillside after reaching the top, due to a reverse reaction its temperature will rise.

Damavand Cloud Cap

This reciprocal flow continues to point c in the picture. As the temperature increase causes the evaporation of clouded droplets and gradually decreases the density of the cloud layers. Despite the fast and robust airflow, the formed cloud will remain on the peak. Two reverse expansion and compression mechanisms on both sides of the mountain caused by the airflows are why the cloud cap has appeared.