Next-Generation Fire System (NGFS) data within a RealEarth instance (direct link), above, shows the rapid development and growth of multiple fires during the day on 14 March 2025. The RealEarth instance might be an easier way to track fires on an Extreme Fire Weather day like 14 March; the NGFS Alerts Dashboard (https://cimss.ssec.wisc.edu/ngfs) below (showing only detections in Texas and Oklahoma), in a screenshot from just after 0000 UTC on 15 March), shows many many detections and unless you are keenly aware of Oklahoma geography and county names, it’s hard to know at a glance which fires are which. When plotted on a map as shown above, they are easier to track.

The RealEarth instance has imagery that is probe-able. The probe shown below of the Hickory Hill Road fire lists out different satellite-derived properties at the point probed.

Multiple Fire Warnings have been issued over Oklahoma. At 2336 UTC, the Norman OK WFO website (above) showed the location of active warnings. The NGFS RealEarth display for that time is shown below. Not all of the fires indicated at that time below have Fire Warning associated with them. A Fire Warning occurs as a request to the NWS Forecast Office by their partners. For example, if you were to click on the map above within the Fire Warning polygon southwest of Stillwater, you would have access to the Fire Warning text shown at bottom, issued at the request of the Oklahoma Forestry Service.

The graphic below, from WFO OUN, testifies to the historic nature of this wildfire outbreak. The extraordinary winds — Stillwater OK airport saw gusts exceeding 70 knots — are helping to drive the fires. The widespread dust is apparent in the RealEarth imagery above

There was a very timely and informative Satellite Book Club presentation on Wildfire operations on 13 March 2025. Click here to listen.

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Imagery from CSPP Geosphere (direct link), above, shows the condensation trail produced by the launch of the SpaceX rocket. Only routine CONUS 5-minute scanning was available to view the launch; very active weather over the southern Plains caused the GOES-16 mesoscale sectors to be positioned north and west of Florida. The 2303 UTC launch (news link), shortly before sunset, created a crescent-shaped condensation trail at 2306 UTC as denoted by the arrow in the animation above. After sunset, Night Microphysics RGB imagery highlights the plume (also highlighted by the arrow) because of its different temperature compared to its surroundings. The rocket is destined for the Space Station and a crew exchange (News article).

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I awoke to thunderstorms in Madison, Wisconsin this morning. The elevated storms were riding a warm front at 850 mb, fueled by moderate-to-strong warm-air advection.

This was a good opportunity to look at ProbSevere LightningCast version 2, which includes Multi-Radar Multi-Sensor (MRMS) Reflectivity -10C as a predictor, along with several visible, near-infrared, and longwave-infrared bands from the GOES-R Advanced Baseline Imager (ABI). In the animation below, the contours in the left images were produced by LightningCast v1 (ABI-only predictors), whereas the contours in the right images were produced by LightningCast v2 (ABI + MRMS predictors). The background imagery is the GOES-16 IR-only cloud phase RGB and the blue foreground pixels are observed flash-extent density from the GOES-16 Geostationary Lightning Mapper (GLM).

The LightningCast v1 probabilities were lower for the storms in southern Wisconsin compared to LightningCast v2, which had elevated probabilities before lightning initiation. There are likely a couple of reasons that v1 probabilities are lower: 1) the short-wave reflective bands are not contributing at this time, and 2) overlapping mid- and high-level clouds may be obscuring the convective signal for the long-wave infrared predictors.

Overall, we’ve found that LightningCast v2 is very similar to v1, but outperforms v1 in important situations such as in new convective development under thick ice (e.g., anvil clouds), for convective decay, and sometimes in nocturnal convection. We have not seen significant degradation in regions without MRMS coverage or drops in lead time to lightning initiation when applying LightningCast v2.

This new version of LightningCast will be evaluated at the NOAA Hazardous Weather Testbed in May and June of this year.

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Imagery from the VIIRS Today website, shown below, shows the stark effects of the Lunar Eclipse on Day Night Band imagery. Suomi NPP and NOAA-20 passes over the east coast (shown below; it happened with NOAA-21 too!) lack the reflected moonlight that was available over the central/western United States after the lunar eclipse had ended. This will happen again on September 7th this year. Mark your calendars.

Suomi-NPP overflew the eastern USA around 0720 UTC; NOAA-20 overflew around 0745 UTC; NOAA-21 overflew around 0700 UTC.

Contrast, below, NOAA-21 overpasses (imagery taken from the CIMSS VIIRS Viewer) at 0651 and 0831 UTC. With no reflected lunar illumination in the earlier overpass, aurora over northern Canada are far easier to view (Note also the lightning streaks over the ocean). It’s a bit harder to see the full extent of the aurora in the more illuminated overpass at 0831 UTC.

Bob Carp, SSEC, created the following animation using McIDAS-V. It shows swaths from Suomi-NPP, NOAA-20 and NOAA-21. You’ll see that DNB imagery is starting to dim at 0507 UTC and starts to brighten up by 0832 UTC. This website gives times when the effects of the eclipse were expected: The penumbral part of the eclipse was from 0357 UTC to 1000 UTC; a partial eclipse was from 0509 UTC to 0847 UTC; totality was from 0626 UTC to 0731 UTC.

In addition, shown below is a similar animation (created using AWIPS) that steps through Day/Night Band images from Suomi-NPP + NOAA-21 (white labels) and NOAA-20 (cyan labels).

VIIRS Day/Night Band images from Suomi-NPP + NOAA-21 (white labels) and NOAA-20 (cyan labels) [courtesy Scott Bachmeier, CIMSS; click to enlarge]

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