The Meteorology, Climatology, and Geophysics Agency (BMKG) explains the phenomenon of clouds that look like tsunamis.
This natural incident appeared in Meulaboh, Aceh, scientifically.
BMKG emphasized that this phenomenon is common and does not have the potential to cause an earthquake or tsunami.
“Scientifically in the world of meteorology, the cloud phenomenon is called the arcus cloud. Arcus cloud features can be found between the Cumulonimbus and Cumulus cloud types,” said Deputy for Meteorology, BMKG, Guswanto in his statement, Tuesday (11 August 2020).
Guswanto said that the arcus cloud phenomenon could arise because of the sea wind phenomenon on a large scale.
Then this sea breeze pushes the air mass towards the land, that forms the the cloud.
“This condition can occur partly because of the phenomenon of sea breezes on a wide scale pushing air masses towards the land,” he said.
Furthermore, Guswanto emphasized that this arcus cloud has nothing to do with a potential earthquake or tsunami.
He explained that cloud formation was purely due to atmospheric dynamics.
However, Guswanto still asked residents to be alert to potential bad weather conditions.
In addition, he suggests people to always update weather information from BMKG.
