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Rare December tornado in Washington

By Scott Bachmeier •


GOES-17 “Red” Visible (0.64 µm) images, with plots of hourly surface reports and SPC storm reports [click to play animation | MP4]

* GOES-17 images shown here are preliminary and non-operational *

A rare December tornado occurred in Port Orchard, Washington on 18 December 2018. GOES-17 “Red” Visible (0.64 µm) images (above) and “Clean” Infrared Window (10.3 µm) images (below) showed the thunderstorms that moved eastward across the area in the wake of the passage of an occluded front earlier in the day.

GOES-17 "Clean" Infrared Window (10.3 µm) images, with plots of hourly surface reports and SPC storm reports [click to play animation | MP4]

GOES-17 “Clean” Infrared Window (10.3 µm) images, with plots of hourly surface reports and SPC storm reports [click to play animation | MP4]

Due to the relatively large GOES-17 satellite viewing angle (or zenith angle) of 56.38 degrees, there was a modest amount of parallax error in terms of the actual location of cloud-top features associated with the tornado-producing storm. A toggle between GOES-17 Visible and Infrared images at 2147 UTC with SPC tornado reports plotted at their actual and “parallax-corrected” locations (assuming a mean storm-top height of 8 km) are shown below — note how the parallax-corrected tornado plot location more closely aligns with top the parent thunderstorm.

GOES-17 "Red" Visible (0.64 µm) image at 2147 UTC, with SPC tornado report plots at their actual and "parallax-corrected" locations [click to enlarge]

GOES-17 “Red” Visible (0.64 µm) image at 2147 UTC, with SPC tornado report plots at their actual and “parallax-corrected” locations [click to enlarge]

GOES-17 "Clean" Infrared Window (10.3 µm) image at 2147 UTC, with SPC tornado report plots at their actual and "parallax-corrected" locations [click to enlarge]

GOES-17 “Clean” Infrared Window (10.3 µm) image at 2147 UTC, with SPC tornado report plots at their actual and “parallax-corrected” locations [click to enlarge]

A comparison of VIIRS Infrared Window (11.45 µm) images from Suomi NPP (Washington overpass time: 2042 UTC) and NOAA-20 (Washington overpass time: 2132 UTC) is shown below. The coldest cloud-top infrared brightness temperatures on the VIIRS images were -42ºC (bright green enhancement), which corresponded to altitudes of 7-8 km on 00 UTC rawinsonde data from Quillayute, Washington (plot).

VIIRS Infrared Window (11.45 µm) images from Suomi NPP (overpass time 2042 UTC) and NOAA-20 (overpass time 2132 UTC) [click to enlarge]

VIIRS Infrared Window (11.45 µm) images from Suomi NPP (overpass time 2042 UTC) and NOAA-20 (overpass time 2132 UTC), with the location of the SPC tornado report plotted in red [click to enlarge]

A toggle between NOAA-20 VIIRS Infrared Window (11.45 µm) images at the local overpass times of 1952 UTC and 2132 UTC, viewed using RealEarth (below), provided a closer view of the convection.

NOAA-20 VIIRS Infrared Window (11.45 µm) images at 1952 UTC and 2032 UTC [click to enlarge]

NOAA-20 VIIRS Infrared Window (11.45 µm) images at 1952 UTC and 2032 UTC [click to enlarge]

Categories: GOES-17, NOAA-20, RealEarth, Severe convection, Suomi NPP, VIIRS