The Electric Blue Polar Cloud Season Came Early This Year

"Each year, a glowing mass of clouds forms over the South Pole, high in the atmosphere, trapped between Earth and space."

"rom the ground they look wispy and shimmery, like a blue-white aurora borealis. From space, they look like an electric-blue gossamer haze."

"Scientists call them noctilucent, or night-shining, clouds, and this year the noctilucent cloud season came early to the Southern Hemisphere. In the decade since NASA launched a satellite that can take images of the ice crystals that make up such clouds, the clouds have usually started showing up over the South Pole in late November or early December."

"Composite satellite images posted on NASA's website today show Antarctica under noctilucent cloud cover beginning Nov. 17 this year, tying it with the earliest start measured."