Himawari-9 Airmass RGB Imagery, 1600 UTC 23 April 2024 – 0500 UTC 24 April 2024 (Click to enlarge) An extended dry period over the Marianas Islands was broken (at least temporarily) on 24 April when training thunderstorms dropped more than 5 inches of rain at the Guam airport. The US Drought Monitor data for the Marianas is shown below. Guam and Saipan both show extreme drought. Before the rain on 24 April, Guam year-to-date rains were 50% of normal. Persistent drought over the islands means that the heavy rains that fell likely did not percolate into the soil, instead becoming run-off. The ai ..read more

GOES-16 Visible images with an overlay of the Fire Mask derived product [click to play animated GIF | MP4] 5-minute CONUS Sector GOES-16 Visible images with an overlay of the Fire Mask derived product (above) showed the thermal signatures and smoke plumes associated with prescribed burns in the Florida Panhandle on 22 April 2024. Once the smoke plumes extended about 20-30 miles offshore, their signature began to become apparent in the GOES-16 Aerosol Optical Depth (AOD) derived product (below) — AOD values exceeded 1.0 (darker red pixels) for the easternmost smoke plume. GOES-16 Visible ima ..read more

There are several satellites that routinely image the Sun, to support Space Weather. Due to the recent total solar eclipse, there has been much interest in the Sun. SUVI The GOES-R series also has a number of space weather instruments, including the SUVI (Solar UV Imager). GOES-16 SUVI images (He 303) on April 8, 2024. GOES-16 SUVI images (Fe 171) on April 8, 2024. (Click to Play) The above images are via the UW/SSEC ingest of NOAA’s GOES-16 SUVI data via the GOES Re-Broadcast (GRB). SDO There are many (incorrectly) reporting that a #SolarFlare was visible during the #TotalSolarEclipse. This ..read more

NOAA-20 Day Night Band visible imagery (0.7) and Derived ACSPO Lake Surface Temperatures, 0756 UTC on 22 April 2024 (Click to enlarge) NOAA-20 overflew the Great Lakes early on 22 April 2024 (Earth Day) and the lack of cloud cover (except over northeastern Lake Superior) allowed a determination of Lake Surface Temperatures over most of the Great Lakes. As is usually the case, Lake Erie is the warmest lake, with temperatures near 50oF over the western part of the lake (values are closer to 41-42oF just north of Erie PA). How might Erie’s temperatures change in the near future? That’s estimated ..read more

The Storm Prediction Center storm reports for 18 April, below, show severe weather clustered over Missouri and Illinois within the 2000 UTC Enhanced Risk polygon for that day. SPC’s Mesoscale Discussions Numbers 486 — at 2148 UTC — and 488 — at 2312 UTC — discussed these storms. How did the Fusion modeling system, i.e., a modeling system that includes assimilated data that has been modified by the inclusion of thermodynamic observations from Polar-Orbiting satellites, perform on this day? SPC Storm Reports from 18 April 2024 plotted on top of the 2000 UTC Convective Outlook (Click to enlarge ..read more

1-minute GOES-16 “Red” Visible (0.64 µm, top) and “Clean” Infrared Window (10.3 µm, bottom) images with time-matched (+/- 3 minutes) SPC Storm Report plots, from 1915 UTC to 2137 UTC on 20 April [click to play animated GIF | MP4] 1-minute Mesoscale Domain Sector GOES-16 (GOES-East) images showed clusters of severe thunderstorms that developed in the vicinity of the North Carolina / South Carolina border on 20 April 2024 — “Red” Visible (0.64 µm) and “Clean” Infrared Window (10.3 µm) images (above) included time-matched plots of preliminary/filtered SPC Storm Reports for these thund ..read more

The animation below from the CSPP Geosphere website (direct link to animation) shows regions of low clouds, some of which develop in the vertical, and some of which do not (see annotated image underneath the animation). Is there a product that can be used to discriminate between these two regions? True Color (day) and Night Time Microphysics RGB (night) over part of the south Pacific, 0440 – 1340 UTC on 19 April 2026 (Where is development concentrated? That’s suggested in the image above. GOES-18 Total Precipitable Water fields, below, might help you understand why development occurs in some p ..read more

Himawari-9 Infrared Window (10.4 µm) images from 1110-1600 UTC on 17 April [click to play animated GIF | MP4] 10-minute JMA Himawari-9 AHI Infrared Window (10.4 µm) images (above) showed an explosive eruption of Mount Ruang in Indonesia on 17 April 2024. Note that a thunderstorm was reported at Menado (station identifier WAMM) from 1400-1430 UTC, due to abundant lightning activity within the dense volcanic umbrella cloud. Himawari-9 Infrared Window (10.4 µm) image at 1240 UTC on 17 April [click to enlarge] In the Himawari-9 Infrared Window (10.4 µm) image at 1240 UTC (above), the coldest p ..read more

There are many GOES loops showing the moon’s shadow from the total solar eclipse on April 8, 2024 (UW/CIMSS; CIRA; Satellite Liaison; NOAA). Time compositing, in this case selecting the minimum brightness, shows the shadow from several times in a single frame. Full Disk A time composite of the minimum brightness of ABI band 3 (0.86 micrometer) every 10 min on the afternoon of April 8, 2024. The above image is a composite of 21 images, from 16:30 to 19:50 UTC (image start times). The composite consists of selecting the darkest pixel. Note that a special enhancement was applied to each image bef ..read more

1-minute GOES-18 Total Precipitable Water derived product with an overlay of “Clean” Infrared Window (10.3 µm) images [click to play animated GIF | MP4] 1-minute Mesoscale Domain Sector GOES-18 (GOES-West) Total Precipitable Water (TPW) derived product with an overlay of “Clean” Infrared Window (10.3 µm) images (above) showed that an axis of moisture was in place across the Samoan Islands — peak TPW values were in excess of 2.0 in (brighter shades of magenta) — with isolated pulses of convection developing over parts of Western Samoa. Since there is no radar coverage acro ..read more