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Severe turbulence southwest of Hawai’i

By Scott Bachmeier •

GOES-17 Upper-level Water Vapor images, with pilot reports of turbulence [click to play animation | MP4]

GOES-17 Upper-level Water Vapor (6.2 µm) images, with pilot reports of turbulence [click to play animation | MP4]

An Air Canada flight encountered severe turbulence southwest of Hawai’i on 11 July 2019, which injured 37 passengers (media report 1 | media report 2 | pilot report text | pilot report location | flight path | flight data). GOES-17 (GOES-West)  Upper-level Water Vapor (6.2 µm) images (above) and Mid-level Water Vapor (6.9 µm) images (below) revealed subtle gravity waves propagating westward from clusters of thunderstorms located near 160º W longitude. In addition, a small and short-lived thunderstorm developed just north of the turbulence event, which also produced subtle gravity waves (those waves could have interfered with the other waves emanating from the larger storms to the east) — and an even smaller, shorter-lived convective cell developed very near to and right around the time of the 1411 UTC turbulence encounter.

GOES-17 Mid-level Water Vapor (6.9 µm) images, with pilot reports of turbulence [click to play animation | MP4]

GOES-17 Mid-level Water Vapor (6.9 µm) images, with pilot reports of turbulence [click to play animation | MP4]

Categories: Aviation, GOES-17