A clear night over the Great Lakes — associated with a large High Pressure System, shown below in the 0600 UTC Surface Analysis — allowed a high-resolution view of Lake Surface Temperatures. There are thin filaments of colder waters hugging different coastlines: the eastern shore of Lake Michigan, the western shore of the Upper Peninsula ..read more

There are many examples of NOAA‘s GOES ABI detecting the spectral signatures of large rockets. These include GOES-S, GOES-T, GOES-U, GOES-U boosters, Starliner, Falcon 9, Ariane, Himawari-9, etc. If the rocket is large enough, there is often a signal in each of the 16 ABI bands. Of course the timing of the ABI scan needs to correspond to the times of the rocket’s brightest / hottest phases, which is more likely if there’s a meso-scale sector covering the area of interest, either at 1-min or 30-second cadence. Smaller rockets, such as the Firefly, may be be an order of magnitude darker/cooler c ..read more

NOAA-20 True Color imagery, Day Night band visible (0.7 µm) imagery, and Aerosol Optical Depth (AOD) on 1925 UTC, 21 July 2024 (Click to enlarge) As noted here, CSPP software now includes the ability to show reprojected values of Aerosol Optical Depth, in this case within AWIPS. The AOD from the NOAA-20 afternoon pass on 21 July shows extensive smoke over the Plains of Canada and the northern Plains of the USA. Clean air is confined to the Upper Peninsula (UP) of Michigan. The Day Night band imagery at the same time is more distinct over the UP as well. Note, for example, how easy it is to see ..read more

Next Generation Fire System (NGFS) Alerts (from this website) for the 24 hours including most of 19 July 2024, above, include an alert for a fire on the island of Kauai. Satellite imagery (note the blue button in the alert above) for the time of the alert, below, includes RGB imagery with a box highlighting the detected pixel. The animation below shows the NGFS Microphysics RGB from 0501 to 0556 UTC (0556 UTC was when NGFS detected the fire, and the detected warm pixels associated with the detected fire are highlighted (in a color related to the computed Fire Radiative Power (FRP)). The box ..read more

NOAA-20 VIIRS True Color and computed AOD, 2103 UTC on 16 July 2024 (Click to enlarge) The Community Satellite Processing Package (CSPP) Polar2grid package is being updated and amended. Polar2grid version 3.1 (coming soon to a computer near your desk!) will include the ability to compute Aerosol Optical Depth (AOD) and Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI). The imagery above from AWIPS shows the NOAA-20 AOD near the Lone Rock fire in north-central Oregon. The large values of AOD within the smoke plume are obvious. AOD display values are capped at 1. Normalized Difference Vegetation Ind ..read more

GOES-18 True Color Imagery over the Lone Rock Fire, 2056 – 2321 UTC on 13 July, 14 July, 15 July, 16 July and 17 July GOES-18 True Color imagery (from the CSPP Geosphere website) shows the growth of the Lone Rock fire burn scar over rural north-central Oregon (note the Columbia River at the top of the imagery) from 13 July 2024 (when the fire started in Gilliam County) to 17 July 2024. Careful examination of the True Color imagery shows a fire signal (in the form of a smoke plume) first appearing at 2206 UTC on 13 July 2024. How did NGFS — the Next Generation Fire System — alerts handle this e ..read more

GOES-16 CONUS sector Day Cloud Phase Distinction, 1616-1931 UTC on 16 July 2024 (Click to enlarge) Day Cloud Phase Distinction imagery, above, from the GOES-16 CONUS Sector, shows the development of convection along the southern tier of counties in Wisconsin. LightningCast probabilities (the probability that a GLM observation will occur within the next 60 minutes) start to ramp up shortly after 1800 UTC, a 10% contour appears at 1826 UTC (in Rock County over southern Wisconsin), a 50% contour at 1851 UTC. The first GLM observation occurred between 1906 and 1911 UTC, meaning a lead time of more ..read more

Geo2grid software was used to create the three true-color animations below, using GOES-16 Full-Disk Level-1b Radiance data over the tropical Atlantic. ABI gives a vivid representation of the cloud patterns associated with a tropical wave developing (near 35oW on 27 June, near 40oW on 28 June, and approaching 50oW on 29 June). The storm was declared a tropical depression at 2100 UTC on 28 June and was hurricane Beryl starting at 2100 UTC on 29 June (The archive of NHC advisories is here). The geo2grid commands to create the GOES imagery are shown below. Three different domains are chosen, then ..read more

Geosphere Night Microphysics RGB imagery on 11 July 2024, below, shows a signal developing over (what was eventually called) the Cow Valley fire in rural eastern Oregon. The new fire developed just north of the Bonita Springs fire and to the west of the Huntington Mutual Aid fire. A consistent signal is apparent by 1100 UTC. According to the National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC), the fire was first reported at 1310 UTC, two hours later. Geosphere Night Microphysics RGB, 1001-1226 UTC on 11 July 2024 GOES-18 imagery from the Geosphere site, below, shows the growth of the smoke pall from the f ..read more

Starting on June 19, 2024, there was a large haboob (“wall of dust”) over New Mexico and nearby regions. This was captured by both GOES-18 (1-min “mesoscale”) and GOES-16 (5-min “Contiguous U.S.”) ABI imagery. What is shown is the CIMSS true color composite imagery during the day and the “dust” RGB at night. Both animations run from approximately 21 UTC on June 19 to 04 UTC on June 20th, 2024. NOAA’s GOES-18 (GOES-West) ABI imagery (CIMSS true color and the dust RGB). Similar loop as above, but as seen from NOAA’s GOES-East. NOAA’s GOES-16 (GOES-East) ABI imagery (CIMSS true color and the dust ..read more