Cloud formations do not portend quakes: experts

Several photos of disc shaped clouds tinged with orange and purple were shared on Facebook, with one August 30 post reading: "This was taken in the morning of the earthquake. I felt something was unusual, so I captured it. Turns out it was an earthquake cloud!"

"Next time I see one, I’ll know an earthquake is coming."

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Screenshot of the false Facebook post captured on September 4, 2025, with a red X added by AFP

Other similar images of the cloud formation were also shared elsewhere on Facebook and Threads, with users linking them to impending earthquakes.

"I don’t understand the connection between clouds and earthquakes, but I have a feeling it’s going to happen," read one comment.

Another reads: "It is really an earthquake cloud. Stunning!"

The posts appeared after Taiwan's Central Weather Administration (CWA) reported a magnitude-6.0 earthquake had struck off the northeast coast of Yilan county on August 27 (archived link).

Taiwan is frequently hit by earthquakes due to its location on the edges of two tectonic plates near the Pacific Ring of Fire, which the United States Geological Survey (USGS) says is the most seismically active zone in the world (archived link).

But both the USGS and the CWA say there is no scientific method to precisely predict when or where earthquakes will strike (archived here and here).

Meng Lingsen, a geophysics professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, also dismissed the idea that cloud formations are indicative of future earthquakes (archived link). 

"Earthquakes are driven by processes deep within the Earth, not by phenomena in the atmosphere, so surface observations of clouds are not a dependable indicator of earthquake occurrence " Meng told AFP via an email on September 3.

The National Taiwan University's Chen Jen-ping, who studies atmospheric sciences, identified the formation seen in the circulating photos as a lenticular cloud (archived link).

"Such clouds are purely atmospheric phenomena, unrelated to an earthquake." Chen told AFP on September 3.

The CWA explained in an August 27 Facebook post that lenticular clouds form when moist and stable air moves quickly over mountains, creating waves in the atmosphere (archived link).

Leung Wing-mo, former assistant director at the Hong Kong Observatory, told AFP on September 3 the mountains near Yilan offer a suitable condition for the formation of lenticular clouds (archived link). 

He added that "earthquake clouds" do not exist.

AFP has previously debunked other earthquake related misinformation.