Hurricane Joaquin Over Bermuda
Hurricane Joaquin is pictured in this satellite image off the east coast of the United States in this handout photo provided by NOAA GOES Project, taken October 5, 2015 at 0015 GMT. Reuters/NOAA GOES Project/Handout via Reuters

Researchers from the Colorado State University who analysed images from a National Aeronautics and Space Administration satellite found hexagonal-shaped clouds off the coast of Florida over the Bahamas. They found the straight-edge appearance of the clouds unusual since most of the time clouds are randomly distributed.

A University of Arizona scientist, Randy Cerveny, says hexagonal-shaped clouds over the ocean are air bombs formed by microblasts. He explains these are blasts of air that came down out of a cloud’s bottom and his the ocean and create waves which could sometimes be massive in size and begin to interact with each other.

According to Steve Miller, satellite meteorologist from Colorado State University, the team also studied clouds that were similar in shape over the North Sea off the UK coast. Their finding was that these clouds were associated with sea level winds of up to 160 kilometres per hour, sufficiently powerful to create waves more than 14 metres high.

Sciencealert points out that while hexagonal clouds could be common in the region and associated with winds that are stronger than normal, there is not a strange excess of disappearances in the area to solve in the first place and their study has not been published in a peer-reviewed journal. But their finding is potential evidence of a new weather phenomenon.

MensXP, however, notes it could be the most logical explanation to the unexplained disappearance of several ships and aircraft over the area.