JMA Himawari-9 “Red” Visible (0.64 µm, left) and “Clean” Infrared Window (10.4 µm, right) images, with a cyan * marking the estimated location of the turbulence encounter at 0749 UTC on 21 May [click to play animated GIF | MP4] Singapore Airlines Flight SQ321 encountered severe turbulence encountered severe turbulence over Myanmar (flightradar24) while en route from London to Singapore on 20-21 May 2024. 10-minute interval JMA Himawari-9 AHI Visible and Infrared images (above) showed areas of deep convection developing over Myanmar, near the estimated location of the turb ..read more

A WRF model run that includes assimilated Low-Earth-Orbit (LEO) satellite sounder data (fused with ABI data) is being evaluated at the Hazardous Weather Testbed (Blog posts from forecasters at HWT are here). On 20 May 2024, the PHS model output included convective development over the eastern Plains of Colorado, as shown in the animation below of model Composite Reflectivity at hourly time-steps. The screenshots below are from AWIPS; model output is also available here. PHS model output of Composite Reflectivity, hourly from 20 UTC 20 May through 00 UTC 21 May 2024 (Click to enlarge) The PHS m ..read more

30-second GOES-16 “Red” Visible (0.64 µm) images with time-matched SPC Storm Reports plotted in red [click to play animated GIF | MP4] Overlapping 1-minute Mesoscale Domain Sectors provided 30-second interval GOES-16 (GOES-East) “Red” Visible (0.64 µm) images (above) — which showed thunderstorms that produced damaging winds (with some fatalities) across the Houston area (SPC Storm Reports) on 16 May 2024. The corresponding 30-second GOES-16 “Clean” Infrared Window (10.3 µm) images (below) revealed numerous pulses of thunderstorm overshooting tops that exhib ..read more

GOES-16 Ash RGB images [click to play animated GIF | MP4] 5-minute CONUS Sector GOES-16 Ash RGB images (above) showed a pulse of blowing dust — lofted by thunderstorm outflow winds gusting as high as 70 kt or 81 mph — that was moving southward across West Texas late in the day on 16 May 2024. This dust reduced surface visibility to 1-1/4 mi at some sites as it made its way south across Interstates I-20 and I-10. In this particular case, the Ash RGB provided a better depiction of the blowing dust than the Dust RGB (both RGBs use the same spectral bands, but are scaled differently). GOES-16 Tr ..read more

GOES-18 Night Microphysics and True Color Imagery, 1201 UTC 13 May – 0401 UTC 14 May 2024 A 16-hour animation using 5-minute GOES-18 PACUS imagery, above (saved from the Geosphere site) shows persistent convection along the east coast of Oahu on 13 May. MIMIC estimates of Total Precipitable Water on 13 May, below, show the state of Hawai’i surounded by abundant moisture, although the richest moisture within the ITCZ remains south of the state. Radar estimates of rainfall exceeded 8 inches over a large part of Oahu. MIMIC Total Precipitable Water, 0000 UTC 13 May – 0000 UTC 14 May 2024 (Click t ..read more

NUCAPS Temperature estimates, 706 mb, 1725 UTC on 14 May 2024 (Click to enlarge) NUCAPS EDRs (Environmental Data Records) are now populating space in the cloud, such as at this Amazon webservices link https://noaa-nesdis-n20-pds.s3.amazonaws.com/index.html where you will see a ‘NUCAPS-EDR’ link, and dropping down through year/month/day selections, a user will eventually see a filename such as this: NUCAPS-EDR_v3r1_j01_s202405141514589_e202405141515287_c202405141606240.nc ; ‘j01’ identifies the satellite as NOAA-20; data in this file starts 15:14:58.9 on 14 May 2024, ends at 15:15:28.7 on 14 Ma ..read more

GOES-18 Day Land Cloud Fire RGB (top left), Shortwave Infrared (3.9 µm, top right), “Clean” Infrared Window (10.3 µm, bottom left) and “Red” Visible (0.64 µm) + Fire Power derived product (bottom right), from 1900 UTC on 13 May to 0040 UTC on 14 May [click to play animated GIF | MP4] 10-minute Full Disk sector GOES-18 (GOES-West) Day Land Cloud Fire RGB, Shortwave Infrared (3.9 µm), “Clean” Infrared Window (10.3 µm) and “Red” Visible (0.64 µm) + Fire Power derived product (a component of the GOES Fire Detection and Characterization Algorithm FDCA) images (above) show ..read more

VIIRS data downloaded from the CIMSS Direct Broadcast antenna (the link is evanescent) is used to create imagery that shows poor air quality over North America. The toggle above compares Aerosol Optical Depth and True-Color imagery derived using CSPP software. Two main smoke plumes are apparent, one stretching from northern Canada south and eastward to the Great Lakes, and a second over the southern Gulf of Mexico/Yucatan Peninsula. Aerosol Optical Depth (AOD) and True-Color imagery derived from VIIRS imagery, ca. 1940 UTC on 12 May 2024 (Click to enlarge) Very large full-resolution images fro ..read more

NOAA-20/NOAA-21 NUCAPS profile estimates of K-Index (individual swaths) over the South Pacific, 2250 UTC 12 May 2024 – 0210 UTC 13 May 2024 (Click to enlarge) The long-anticipated arrival of NOAA-21 NUCAPS profiles (to supplement NOAA-20!) to AWIPS means that data void regions such as the South Pacific Ocean now have complete twice-daily coverage, as shown by the inidividual profiles above, and the overlapping profiles below. This means that a twice-daily mappings of accurate satellite sounder-provided thermodynamic variables are available! The K-Index fields shown here are highlighted because ..read more

GOES-18 Day Land Cloud Fire RGB (top left), Shortwave Infrared (3.9 µm, top right), “Clean” Infrared Window (10.3 µm, bottom left) and “Red” Visible (0.64 µm) + Fire Power derived product (bottom right), from 1500 UTC on 10 May to 0120 UTC on 11 May [click to play animated GIF | MP4] 10-minute Full Disk sector GOES-18 (GOES-West) Day Land Cloud Fire RGB, Shortwave Infrared (3.9 µm), “Clean” Infrared Window (10.3 µm) and “Red” Visible (0.64 µm) + Fire Power derived product (a component of the GOES Fire Detection and Characterization Algorithm FDCA) images (above) show ..read more