Today at 16:55 UTC, NOAA decommissioned NOAA-19, the most recently launched of the remaining legacy NOAA POES spacecraft. NOAA-19 launched on February 6th, 2009 and become operational on June 2nd, 2009. For the last 16 years, NOAA-19 has provided routine weather observations of the entire globe from low-earth orbit.The AVHRR... Read More
Elevated smoke levels have been present in the upper Midwestern United States for well over a week, but recent synoptic-scale pattern shifts have started to bring in clearer (albeit warmer and more humid) air from the south. The following animation shows GOES-19-observed aerosol optical depth (AOD) for 1400 UTC (9:00... Read More
Significant convection across the northern continental United States has had some notable impacts on the aviation network over the past few weeks. On Wednesday, 30 July, Delta Flight 56 was en route from Salt Lake City, UT, with an intended destination of Amsterdam. Shortly after takeoff at 4:30 PM local... Read More
In the evening of 28 July 2025, residents of the Samoan island of Upolu experienced an intense thunderstorm which produced hail, a very rare event for maritime tropical Pacific environments. Social media videos show 1 – 2 cm hailstones falling around residents excited to see such novel conditions. The forecasters... Read More
