In one photograph, a cumulonimbus seems caught mid-gesture, unfolding its fingers toward a cargo container off Staten Island.

In El Niño conditions, sea surface temperatures in the Pacific Ocean become unusually warm and tall thunderheads, known as cumulonimbus clouds, form over the water.

Climate models struggle to simulate hurricanes, some of the biggest cloud systems, let alone lonely streaks of cirrus or a dense, billowing cumulonimbus.