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Shear vortices over the Great Lakes and Ohio River Valley

By Scott Bachmeier •

GOES-16 Water Vapor (6.2 µm, top; 6.9 µm, middle; 7.3 µm, bottom) images [click to play animation]

GOES-16 Water Vapor (6.2 µm, top; 6.9 µm, middle; 7.3 µm, bottom) images [click to play animation]

A well-defined train of wind shear vortices was revealed on GOES-16 Water Vapor images — Upper-level (6.2 µm), Mid-level (6.9 µm) and Lower-level (7.3 µm) — propagating westward over the Great Lakes on 07 June 2017 (above).

A larger-scale view using Mid-level 6.9 µm images (below) showed additional (and larger) vortices which were moving eastward over the Ohio River Valley. Pilot reports of turbulence are plotted on the water vapor images, and many of those reports appeared to be in the general vicinity of the vortices.

GOES-16 Water Vapor (6.9 µm) images [click to play animation]

GOES-16 Water Vapor (6.9 µm) images [click to play animation]

A 3-hour-interval Mid-Level Wind Shear product derived from GOES-13 (GOES-East) atmospheric motion vectors (AMVs) is shown below. An elongated cyclonic shear axis was present from the Northeast US to the Ohio River Valley, and the location of the water vapor vortices appeared to correspond to the wind shear gradients along the northern and southern edges of this axis.

GOES-13 Mid-Level Wind Shear product [click to enlarge]

GOES-13 Mid-Level Wind Shear product [click to enlarge]

Categories: Aviation, GOES-13, GOES-16, Satellite winds