This image juxtaposes two of our planet's most powerful and most delicate weather phenomena. This image shows Tropical Storm Alex's continuing rains and winds over Mexico and a necklace of Von Karman vortices flowing southeast from Isla Socorro, south of the Baja Peninsula, in calm weather. Just like the swirls that can be seen in the wake of airplane wings, these "vortex streets" result in the separation of flow around a body - in this case the island - causing neighboring areas of flow to circulate in alternating clockwise and counter-clockwise directions. Eventually the flow stabilizes as the flow stabilizes downstream from the origin. Interestingly, this image captures a relatively high number of vortices being shed off of the island. Typically, only a few are seen in cloud formations, but at least sixteen can be clearly identified here.