Hurricanes show their devastating power, but it seems recently, the storms also like to show their faces.
Weather Channel senior meteorologist Stu Ostro shared a satellite image of Hurricane Irma on Twitter late Friday that had sinister face-like features, including a grim mouth and disturbing eye.
Ostro paired the image with a similar one of Hurricane Matthew captured last October when that storm made landfall in Haiti. (We wrote about it here.)
Irma’s image looks less terrifying than Matthew to some, primarily because the 2016 Matthew image appeared more skull-like, even baring its “teeth.”
Some Twitter users found less frightening reminders in the image.

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Looks like a pig. So when pigs fly? Welp, that time is here.
— The Rick (@ACOWproductions) September 9, 2017
irma looks like sonogram photo of evil elephant
— ceci (@ceci_StufF) September 9, 2017
The firstone is a skull but the second one is a turkey LOL
— Redvolucionario ★ ☯ (@Revolutionist77) September 10, 2017
Oh look, it’s Snoopy! Snoopy would never hurt anybody… Here boy!
— A.J.Nasty (@zul1732) September 9, 2017
Of course, as some Twitter users pointed out, there’s a name for the tendency our minds have to perceive some familiar pattern where none exists.
Not creepy at all. It’s a scientific phenomenon called Pareidolia. Our minds try to find an object in randomness. Nothing supernatural
— Jennifer Fabulous! (@WhiteSoxJJ216) September 10, 2017
But some people can make everything about food, and that’s at least a little comforting.
Nope still see veal parm. Now I’m hungry.
— Vin Crosby (@VinCrosby) September 9, 2017
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