1-minute Mesoscale Domain Sector GOES-19 (GOES-East) GeoColor RGB images with an overlay of Next Generation Fire System (NGFS) Fire Detection polygons (above) displayed the thermal signatures and daytime smoke plume associated with the Morrill Fire (Watch Duty | InciWeb) in the Nebraska Panhandle on 12 March 2026 (the initial NGFS detection was at 1939 UTC). Surface observations in the vicinity of the fire depicted wind gusts exceeding 60 mph at times (for example, at sites north and southwest of the fire at 2141 UTC). These strong winds — along with dry fuels from ongoing extreme drought conditions — helped the fire to make a rapid southeast run of about 65 miles in 6 hours. Burning over 572000 acres, the Morrill Fire has become the largest wildfire on record for the state of Nebraska; one fatality was directly attributed to the fire.

The initial southeastward run of the fire transitioned to a more gradual southward spread around 0300 UTC on 13 March, as a cold front moved southward across the region (surface analyses). The GOES-19 3.9 µm shortwave infrared brightness temperature first reached 138ºC — the saturation temperature of GOES-19 ABI Band 7 detectors — at 0236 UTC.

During the subsequent nighttime hours, the bright glow of the Morrill Fire was evident in a NOAA-20 VIIRS Day/Night Band image (source) at 0907 UTC on 13 March (below).

During the afternoon hours of 13 March, a toggle between NOAA-21 VIIRS True Color RGB and Day Fire RGB images (below) showed the large size of the Morrill Fire burn scar at 1931 UTC, with some fires (shades of red in the Day Fire RGB) still active along the periphery of the burn scar.

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As a strong arctic cold front moved southward across the Gulf of Mexico toward southern Mexico on 12 March 2026, the cold front fractured as it moved inland across Mexico’s Isthmus of Tehuantepec — the cold air was then channeled southward through Chivela Pass and emerged as a Tehuano (or “Tehuantepecer“) gap wind that eventually fanned outward across the Gulf of Tehuantepec and the adjacent Pacific Ocean. 10-minute Full Disk scan GOES-18 (GOES-West) and GOES-19 (GOES-East) True Color RGB images from the CSPP GeoSphere site (above) showed the hazy plume of dust that was being transported offshore by the Tehuano flow.

A GCOM-W1 AMSR2 wind speed image (below) displayed the leading edge of the Tehuano winds (shades of green) as they began flowing southward across the Gulf of Tehuantepec.

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Kilauea on the big island of Hawaii is renowned for its new-continuous eruptions. However, the output of the volcano isn’t consistent, with some periods featuring slower lava flows with other times having pronounced, notable lava fountains. On 10 March 2026, the lava fountains were particularly intense. Local media reported fountain heights approaching 1500 feet (450 m) tall, measurable ashfall accumulation, and tephra (volcanic ejected material) up to three inches in diameter. The US Geological Survey notice about this event can be read here.

Just as the Band 7 (3.9) micron channel from the GOES Aadvanced Baseline Imager (ABI) is well-suited for fire detection, it is also quite useful for volcano monitoring. The following animation shows the 3.9 micron channel for the period both before and during the appearance of the fountains. The existing eruption is visible as the dark spot on the southeast side of the big island of Hawaii. However, with the fountains beginning between 1900 and 2000 UTC (9:00 to 10:00 AM local time) the bright spot gets so hot that it saturates the scale and appears as a bright white dot that is occasionally obscured by the optically thick ash plume.

Of course, ash is a real concern with an eruption like this, due to the impacts it has on human health and aviation safety. The GOES Volcanic Ash RGB helps monitor the evolution of the ash plume. The following animation is for the same period as the one above, but for this RGB product. The bright green plume is easy to see. Plumes with this color are high in SO₂. Hawaiian airlines reacted to this threat by cancelling its Honolulu to Hilo flights and diverting others to Kona.

The Community Satellite Processing Package (CSPP) calculates Level 2 products from both geostationary and polar orbiting satellites. The CSPP GeoSphere site enables the display of these products. Here’s a move of the aerosol optical depth. Note that this product is only available in otherwise clear skies and during the day, so there are gaps in the retrieval when clouds are present. Still, it shows the evolution of the ash plume from this eruption before it gets overtaken by both clouds and night.

The NEXRAD radar on the south shore of the big island captured the ashfall, too. This animation depicts the evolution of the ash cloud as seen by both the standard reflectivity (left) as well as the correlation coefficient (right). That latter panel depicts a large plume of non-spherical scatterers, consistent with the irregular shape of ash and tephra.

The radar can also be used to investigate just how high the ash plume went. Here is an animation of the different elevation angles of the radar at a single time, 21:58 UTC. The elevation angle, ranging from 0.5 to 3.1 degrees, can be seen in the lower right of the image, just to the left of the time.

Finally, the GOES-18 mesoscale sector scan was deployed to Hawaii during the middle of the eruption to capture it as well as the ongoing Kona low that was bringing rain and flooding to parts of the state. This gives us some fantastic views of the plume. Here it is in both the true color and volcanic ash RGB products.

This particular event ended around 6:30 PM local time (0430 UTC on the 11th), but there may be more fountain events in the future.

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1-minute Mesoscale Domain Sector GOES-19 (GOES-East) Visible and Infrared images with time-matched plots of SPC Storm Reports (above) showed thunderstorms that produced several tornadoes and numerous reports of hail — most notably, as large as 6.10″ in diameter near Kankakee, Illinois at 2328 UTC. If verified, that would be the largest hailstone on record for the state of Illinois (NWS Chicago event summary).

1-minute GOES-19 Visible images (above) and Infrared images (below) included an overlay of GLM Flash Points, which showed abundant lightning activity with these severe thunderstorms.

A toggle between GOES-19 Visible and Infrared images at 2100 UTC (below) showed an “orphan anvil” that was drifting to the northeast (located just north of the Chicago NWS forecast office, identifier KLOT, at that time) — which had developed around 2030 UTC, as the convective cap was beginning to erode just north of a cold front (orphan anvils often appear shortly before the onset of significant convective development, signalling that convective inhibition is weakening).

A toggle between GOES-19 Visible and Infrared images at 2259 UTC (below) displayed well-defined Enhanced-V and Above-Anvil Cirrus Plume (AACP) signatures, extending downwind (eastward) from a prominent overshooting top (cluster of darker black infrared pixels, exhibiting brightness temperatures as cold as -73ºC) over northeast Illinois. As the thunderstorm exhibiting the Enhanced-V/AACP signature crossed border from Illinois to Indiana around 0008 UTC, it produced a tornado that was responsible for 2 fatalities.

The coldest cloud-top infrared brightness temperature of -73ºC roughly corresponded to a ~2 km overshoot of the Most Unstable (MU) air parcel’s Equilibrium Level (EL), according to a plot of rawinsonde data from Lincoln, Illinois (below).

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