The Taieri Pet captured by NASA using satellite imagery. Photo: NASA
Aotearoa is the land of the long white cloud - except we have multiple unique clouds, some with their own names.
One is the Taieri Pet, a UFO-shaped cloud only seen above the Taieri Plains in Otago.
The cloud has received worldwide attention after NASA shared a satellite image on X which showed "the elongated lenticular cloud."
MetService meteorologist Clare O'Connor told Nights that the Taieri Pet also looked cool from the ground.
"From underneath or from nearby you will see like a stake of pancakes or stake of plates sitting on top of each other."
She said the cloud has been documented to have formed since the 1890s, created by strong north-westerly winds.
A cloud so unique it has a name ☁️
— NASA Earth (@NASAEarth) September 15, 2024
Rugged terrain near Middlemarch on New Zealand’s South Island gives rise to a distinctive, elongated lenticular cloud formation. Locally, the cloud is called “Taieri Pet.” https://t.co/Tf8sPGUWQy pic.twitter.com/93zAtYW0pX
But O'Connor said that the Taieri Pet is not the only unique cloud in Aotearoa to have a name.
"One that would be really familiar to Cantabrians, which has the same set up of the north-westerly winds coming over, in this case the southern alps is the Nor'west Arch in Canterbury.
"It's like the Taieri Pet but on a much larger scale."
Another cloud formation included the Greymouth Barber, which O'Connor said was created by south-easterly wind flow.
"The cool air pools in land and when we get a south-easterly flow over the country, it sort of pushes all that air out, up and over into Greymouth."
O'Connor said the clouds were a reminder that there was so much going on around us.
"You can forget you are experiencing what happens to you when you are on the ground, but there is so much more going on, you know, there are things passing over."
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