5-minute CONUS Sector GOES-19 (GOES-East) Infrared images displayed using RealEarth (above) showed a series of southward-moving thunderstorms that produced 1.91? of rainfall near Ruidoso (and 3.29″ over the nearby South Fork Fire burn scar) on 08 July 2025. The resulting flash flooding was responsible for 3 fatalities, and damaged dozens of homes.

The same sequence of 5-minute GOES-19 Infrared images is shown below — but including plots of the Flood Advisories and Flash Flood Warnings that were issued during that 5-hour period.

The hazard of heavy rainfall and flash flooding was compounded by enhanced runoff from the South Fork Fire burn scar (that wildfire occurred just west-northwest of Ruidoso about a year earlier, in June 2024) — a Landsat-8 “Natural Color” RGB image about 2 weeks prior this flash flooding event (below) displayed the large South Fork Fire burn scar (lighter shades of brown), as well as the smaller Salt Fire burn scar to the south-southeast.

With much of the rainfall occurring in a relatively short period of time (particularly over the runoff-prone South Fork Fire burn scar), the Rio Ruidoso River at Hollywood rapidly rose to 20.24 feet. A Flash Flood Emergency had been issued at 2047 UTC, which included Ruidoso, Hollywood and Ruidoso Downs (below).

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Within 24 hours, a volcano on the Indonesian island of Flores erupted three times, with reports of an ash plume penetrating 18 km into the atmosphere. Mount Lewotobi is a twin volcano consisting of a pair of peaks, Perempuam and Laki-laki. It is this later peak that has been active lately, with numerous eruptions since November. On July 7 and 8, 2025, some of the most intense eruptions yet took place, with ash clouds being reported up to 18 km high and debris ejected up to 8 km away. Flights were cancelled out of Bali.

The first eruption was at 11:05 AM local time (0305 UTC), and produced the tallest ash plume. This was well-captured by the Advanced Himawari Imager, as it shows the brown-gray ash plume being transported west by the predominant easterly winds at that latitude.

The Ash RGB provides some interesting insights into the makeup of the plume. The plume is clearly multicolored, indicating that it is far from homogeneous. An animation of the plume is seen here:

To better analyze the makeup of the plume, here is a single still frame of the plume at 0420 UTC (12:20 PM local time). Here, it is possible to take a closer look at the components of the plume as observed by satellite. The Ash RGB recipe can be seen in the quick guide for this product. When this recipe is applied to the Laki-laki plume, notable features pop out. The eastern edge of the plume, closest to the volcano itself, is pink to red in color, indicating thinner quantities of ash. Further west, the plume is brown which is indicative of thicker ash. The bright green area represents a region of high SO2 concentration. At the western tip of the plume the predominant color is yellow; since yellow is a mixture of both red and blue, this represents a region of high concentrations of both ash and SO2.

Of course, volcanoes represent regions of extreme heat, and so they are well observed by satellite fire detection algorithms. Here, teh Fire RGB clearly indicates the eruption with a bright red spot on the eastern edge of the island.

Geostationary satellites serve a very important role for volcano monitoring as their consistent temporal resolution ensures a ready view of the environment in which the eruption is taking place. Sometimes, however, you get lucky with a polar orbiting satellite that passes overhead when something interesting is going on, allowing one to investigate the plume in higher spatial and/or spectral detail. Here is the view of the SO2 cloud as captured by TROPOMI aboard Sentinel-5P on 7 July. This overpass was at approximately 0550 UTC, nearly three hours after the initial eruption) and shows extraordinarily high SO2 concentrations with the highest regions in the center possibly obscured by the optically thick ash.

Note how this compares to the true color and Ash RGB views from the AHI for roughly the same time. The AHI views are plotted independently from the TROPOMI image, so the projection and scale are not identical. Still, it is clear that the different methods of viewing SO2 concentration each has some benefits. The TROPOMI view offers quantitative SO2 retrievals, and appears to identify regions in the center of the plume where SO2 is still high but largely absent from the RGB. By contrast, the large regions of green and yellow in the Ash RGB show that SO2 is present where TROPOMI’s quantitative retrievals are limited by the thick ash cloud.

This was just the first eruption of Laki-laki during this cycle. A second eruption took place at 1130 UTC, and can be seen in the Ash RGB animation as a pulse of pink (indicating ash) moving to the northwest beneath the high cirrus.

A third, less intense eruption occurred at 2153 UTC. Overall, 4000 people have been evacuated. Fortunately, no fatalities have been reported and injuries appear to be minor.

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5-minute CONUS Sector GOES-19 (GOES-East) Infrared images displayed using RealEarth (above) showed the clusters of thunderstorms that produced up to 9.40″ of rainfall near Ingram (located between Hunt and Kerrville) in Kerr County, Texas during the 24-hour period ending at 1700 UTC (Noon local time) on 04 July 2025. The resulting flash flooding was responsible for over 100 fatalities (including up to 95 in Kerr County, with 27 of those at the Camp Mystic summer camp located just northwest of Hunt) and over 850 high-water rescues. With rainfall rates as high as 3-4″ per hour at some upstream locations, the Guadalupe River at Comfort rapidly rose to 34.76 feet.

The same sequence of 5-minute GOES-19 Infrared images is shown below — but on a map of County outlines, and including plots of the numerous Flood Advisories, Flood Warnings and Flash Flood Warnings that were issued during that 18-hour period.

An animation of the MIMIC Total Precipitable Water product (below) revealed a plume of tropical moisture that was moving northward across south-central Texas during the 02-04 July period, helping to create an environment that was favorable for thunderstorm development (a longer animation beginning on 29 June indicated that this plume of tropical moisture was likely enhanced by the remnants of Tropical Storm Barry, after it made landfall in eastern Mexico late in the day on 29 June).

The Precipitable Water (PW) value derived from rawinsonde data at Del Rio, Texas at 0000 UTC on 04 July was 2.34″ — just 0.09″ below the climatological maximum of 2.43″ for all Del Rio soundings on 04 July at 0000 UTC (below).

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At 5:04 PM local time (2104 UTC) on 1 July 2025, the newest member of the geostationary ring was launched into orbit. The MTG-I3 satellite (to be renamed Meteosat 13 upon commissioning) represents a first for EUMETSAT: a hyperspectral sounder in geostationary orbit. While EUMETSAT has long supported hyperspectral sounders in low-earth orbit with the Infrared Atmospheric Sounding Interferometer (IASI) aboard the MetOp series of satellites, the Meteosat Third Generation Infrared Sounder (MTG-IRS) will, for the first time, provide continuously updated hyperspectral observations over Europe.

Hyperspectral infrared observations are some of the most impactful inputs into numerical weather models as they contain information about the spatial and vertical distribution of temperature, water vapor, and clouds. Level 2 products will retrieve profiles of temperature, humidity, and other atmospheric characteristics from these spectra.

MTG-IRS promises 1960 channels across the middle and longwave portions of the infrared spectrum. While IASI observes more channels and and a broader, more continuous spectrum, the much improved temporal resolution that is possible from geostationary orbit will enable forecasters to monitor rapidly-evolving environments and scientists to unlock new understanding of key atmospheric processes. The scanning strategy for MTG-IRS involves repeating over a sequence of four local area coverage (LAC) regions. The region over Europe, LAC4, will be sampled every 30 mins, while the other regions will be sampled in small bursts separated by a few hours. For more on MTG-IRS and its scan strategy, visit the Data Guide.

The satellite also supports the Sentinel 4 mission, which will monitor trace gasses and aerosols from geostationary orbit. This will be accomplished through the Ultraviolet-Visible-Near IR (UVN) imaging spectrometer mounted aboard the satellite, which will provide approximately hourly views over Europe. More about Sentinel 4 is available here.

While many EUMETSAT launches are handled by the ESA launch facility in French Guyana (for example, MTG-I1), the launch for this payload was contracted out to Space-X and launched from the Kennedy Space Center. The same launch pad, 39A, that supported flights to the moon and numerous Space Shuttle flights was used for this trip to geostationary orbit. As is common with launches from Kennedy Space Center, this area was well-sampled by a GOES-19 mesoscale scan. The true color view from SSEC Real Earth shows the brief rocket plume that was present right after launch; it dissipated within just a few minutes.

Interestingly enough, the plume is also visible on the SO2 RGB imagery as a distinctly different color than the existing cloud coverage to the southeast. The SO2 signature is also present longer than the visible plume is. Note how there is also a brief flash of the plume in the far upper right corner of the animation right at launch time that is not present on the true color view.

The United States is hoping to launch a geostationary hyperspectral spounding satellite to cover a swath of the western hemisphere with similar capabilities as part of the GeoXO program that will replace the current generation of GOES satellites. The launch is anticipated in the early 2030s and is projected to revolutionize nowcasting, forecasting, and atmospheric science upon becoming operational.

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