This humble aerial peek into a hazy tropical boundary layer offers a ton of meteorology to ponder. Flying northward over the western Gulf of Thailand, the westernmost arm of the Pacific, the first thing attracting attention could be the plume of smoke and cumuliform cloud material, shearing northward from a fire just inland from the east coast of the Malay Peninsula. The pyro plume somewhat resets the eastern edge of a cumulus-cloud boundary denoting the peninsula’s eastern sea-breeze front, a daytime process (also common to summertime Florida) where the cooler, denser marine air shifts inland and bounds convective development in the warmer, more strongly mixing overland air mass. The Malay Peninsula is nearly twice as long as Florida, but in some places (including here), much narrower. The western sea breeze (fronting the Andaman Sea, an extension of the Bay of Bengal and Indian Ocean) can be seen in the background. In effect, you see sea-breeze fronts from two of the three largest oceans in the world. On this day, a strong cap (inversion) near the top of the boundary layer not only held in the haze, but precluded much more than mediocre vertical development of the cumuli.
over Gulf of Thailand, east of Ao Sayam National Park, Thailand (4 Feb 25) Looking W