10-minute Full Disk scan JMA Himawari-9 AHI Infrared images (above) showed Cyclone Maila as it rapidly intensified to a Category 4 storm (ADT | SATCON) just southwest of the Soloman Islands on 07 April 2026.

A 2.5-minute Himawari-9 Target Sector was positioned over Maila until 1449 UTC — which provided a smoother depiction of the evolution of Maila’s eye during rapid intensification (below). The coldest cloud-top infrared brightness temperatures were -90ºC and colder (yellow pixels embedded within dark purple areas) — for example, at 0107 UTC and 0912 UTC. No -90ºC pixels were seen in the 10-minute Full Disk scan Infrared images, highlighting the value of 2.5-minute Target Sector imagery for capturing subtle details.

Maila had been moving through an environment characterized by low values of deep-layer wind shear (below), a factor which favored intensification.

Microwave imagery from DMSP-18 (below) displayed the eyewall structure of Maila — which was partially eroded along its eastern edge at that time.

A Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) image from RCM-3 (below) sampled wind speeds as high as 118 kts in the NW quadrant of Maila.

A toggle between VIIRS Day/Night Band images from NOAA-20 and NOAA-21 (below) highlighted the eye and eyewall of Maila after sunrise on 08 April — with deep convection very prominent within the eastern semicircle of the eyewall.

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5-minute CONUS Sector GOES-19 (GOES-East) “Red” Visible (0.64 µm) images (above) included an overlay of the Fire Mask derived product (a component of the GOES Fire Detection and Characterization Algorithm FDCA), which depicted the areal coverage and diurnal behavior of thermal signatures associated with widespread prescribed burning in the Flint Hills of eastern Kansas and northern Oklahoma on 06 April 2026.

A plot of surface report data from Emporia, Kansas (below) showed that smoke reduced the surface visibility to 3 miles during the late afternoon hours (at 2300 UTC), and 2.5 miles a few hours after sunset (at 0300 UTC).

5-minute GOES-19 True Color RGB images from the CSPP GeoSphere site (below) offered a clearer view of the smoke plumes across eastern Kansas and northern Oklahoma. There was also a dense smoke plume originating from another area of prescribed burn activity in the vicinity of the Missouri/Arkansas border.

5-minute GOES-19 GeoColor RGB images with an overlay of Next Generation Fire System (NGFS) Fire Detection polygons (below) provided a more integrated depiction of the fire thermal signatures and smoke plumes.

===== 07 April Update =====

Flint Hills prescribed burning continued on 07 April, as seen in GOES-19 Visible images with an overlay of the Fire Mask derived product (above).

A Pilot Report 12 miles SW of Emporia, Kansas at 2055 UTC (below) mentioned that the flight visibility at an altitude of 6000 ft was 4 statute miles due to smoke (the 2100 UTC surface visibility at Emporia KEMP was 7 statute miles — indicating that the bulk of the smoke was aloft).

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For the first time since the early 1970s, humans are on their way to the moon. A partly cloudy sky over Cape Canaveral and Florida’s Space Coast provided a perfect backdrop for GOES-19 mesoscale imagery. Watch the True Color RGB imagery as the most powerful rocket that NASA has ever built shoots eastward across the Atlantic and towards its lunar destination.

The 3.9 micron channel, normally used for fires, can also be used to track the rocket in flight as long the solid rocket boosters and main engines are firing. This loop is the same time and area as the true color image above, but the rocket is shown as the large, rapidly moving dark (hot) spot.

This is also an interesting application for GOES CSPP Level 2 products. Here’s the cloud height product for shortly after launch. The plume is easily over 10000 m right after launch according to this algorithm.

On 6 April 2026, the astronauts will fly around the moon and be further from Earth than any humans have ever been.

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Overlapping 1-minute Mesoscale Domain Sectors provided 30-second imagery from GOES-19 (GOES-East) to support the launch of Artemis II — and Rocket Plume RGB images created using Geo2Grid (above) displayed both the initial hot thermal signature of the NASA Space Launch System (SLS) Core Stage rocket booster near the Kennedy Space Center launch site (brighter red pixels: 2235 UTC) in addition to the later high-altitude thermal signature of moisture-laden rocket exhaust (brighter shades of green: 2239 UTC) as the spacecraft moved quickly eastward away from Florida after launch at 22:35:12 UTC on 01 April 2026.

Multi-panel displays of GOES-19 imagery (below) revealed that reflectance and/or thermal signatures of the SLS rocket booster and its condensation plume were apparent in all 16 ABI spectral bands.

A GOES-18 (GOES-West) Mesoscale Domain Sector was also positioned over the launch area — and in spite of a much of a much larger satellite viewing angle (69 degrees, vs. 36 degrees for GOES-19), reflectance and/or thermal signatures of the SLS rocket booster and its condensation plume were also seen in all 16 ABI spectral bands from GOES-18 (below).

A larger-scale view of 1-minute GOES-18 Water Vapor imagery (below) tracked the thermal signature of the SLS Core Stage booster exhaust as it approached the eastern limb of the satellite view at 2341 UTC.

30-second GOES-19 True Color RGB images (below) showed the SLS rocket booster’s condensation cloud as it initially arched northeast away from the Florida coast — but wind shear soon began to deform that cloud feature.

Plots of rawinsonde data from Jacksonville, Florida (below) showed the wind shear that was present along the east coast of Florida on the day of the launch.

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