Weather Gallery:
Mars
On Mars, similar cloud patterns and dust storms repeat at the same time of year give or take a couple of weeks, just like on Earth, occuring at roughly the same location each year. Scientists see these patterns in daily global images dating back to 1999. While weather patterns are highly predictable, global dust events, so far, are not, and can interfer with the weather. Once the dust has settled though, the weather snaps back to its usual pattern. Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS.
Mars Global Surveyor demonstrates the repeatability of weather patterns in the same locations. However, each year, the cloud appeared at about the same time or slightly earlier than in the previous year. Despite its superficial resemblance to a hurricane or cyclone on Earth, this cloud system does not rotate. The cloud forms as different currents of air merge in the morning hours in the polar region, but by afternoon, the cloud typically dissipates or breaks up into smaller clouds. Image: NASA/JPL/MSSS.
On 30 June 1999 the Mars Global Surveyor watched the development of this large storm system above Mars' north polar region. The images are separated by about 2 hours. High winds seem to mix the brownish dust clouds and white water-ice clouds as the curling storm front churns over the extreme northern Martian landscape. Image: Malin Space Science Systems/MGS/JPL/NASA.
Martian dust devils can reach the size of terrestrial tornadoes with plumes that tower up to 9 kilometres above the surface. They play an important role in sustaining the aerosols that make up Mars’ red sky and in cleaning the Martian surface after a dust storm. This observation by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter shows a region near the Martian equator that is a perfect tablet for the scribblings of dust-devils. This region is made up of dark bedrock that is thinly blanketed by bright dust. Dark tracks form when dust-devils scour the surface, exposing the darker substrate. The tracks tend to cluster together, as dust-devils repeatedly form over terrain that has been previously scoured and is consequently darker and warmer than the surrounding surface. Image: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona.
 
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