The furious waters off the coast of Norway are no joke

Today’s Image of the Day comes courtesy of the NASA Earth Observatory and features a look at the notoriously violent waters off the coast of Norway. This image was taken by the Operational Land Imager (OLI) onboard the Landsat 8 satellite.

In the center of the photo sits the Saltfjorden fjord where dramatic vortices and strong currents are a common occurrence. These vortices are formed by changing tides and are called maelstrom. In Norwegian, they are called “moskenstraumen” because they are especially potent off the island of Mosken. There, the currents reach speeds of 11 miles per hour.

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By Rory Arnold, Earth.com

Source: NASA Earth Observatory