A commercial airline pilot flying near Panama snapped a jaw-dropping photo of a massive thunderstorm over the Pacific Ocean, revealing the towering scale and raw power of nature from high above the clouds.
A Pilot’s Unique View of Nature’s Power
Flying at 37,000 feet offers a perspective few people ever get to experience. Last month, First Officer Santiago Borja, a Boeing 767 pilot, captured an extraordinary image of a thunderstorm towering over the Pacific Ocean near Panama. He took the photo from the cockpit during a routine flight to South America.
“I love this photo because it shows not only the incredible size and power of the storm but also the calmness of flying around it without even touching it,” Borja told the Washington Post’s Capital Weather Gang. Borja, who has combined his passions for aviation and photography, now carries his camera into the cockpit to record these awe-inspiring scenes.
Towering Storms That Reach Space-Like Heights
From high above, cumulonimbus clouds appear even more imposing. Some grow so large they’re visible from space. In April, British astronaut Tim Peake photographed a similar thunderstorm over Nepal from the International Space Station, showing how far these weather systems can extend. The flat, table-like tops seen in both Borja’s and Peake’s photos are called anvils — a signature feature of strong thunderstorms. These anvils form when clouds rise so high they reach the stratosphere, where the temperature starts warming with altitude. Unable to rise further, the cloud spreads out along this invisible ceiling.
Updrafts Bursting Through the Stratosphere
The lumpy “bubbles” protruding above the flat top of Borja’s storm photo are more than just dramatic scenery — they’re evidence of intense updrafts. In particularly strong storms, these updrafts have enough momentum to punch into the stratosphere, an unmistakable sign of a powerful and potentially severe thunderstorm. For pilots like Borja, such storms are both a hazard and a spectacle. Flying around them safely while documenting their grandeur offers a rare glimpse of Earth’s atmosphere at its most dynamic.
