MCS merger over northwestern Missouri

By Scott Bachmeier • 4 June 2020

GOES-16 “Clean” Infrared Window (10.35 µm) images (credit: Pete Porandt, AOS) [click to play MP4 animation]

GOES-16 (GOES-East) “Clean” Infrared Window (10.35 µm) images covering the 26-hour period from 1801 UTC on 03 June to 1956 UTC on 04 June 2020 (above) featured the merger of 2 Mesoscale Convective Systems over northwestern Missouri (beginning around 06 UTC). An animation of radar reflectivity is available here (credit: Pete Pokrandt, AOS).

To all of you asking us what this means/is. We basically have a back-building Mesoscale Convective System (MCS) from the east running into a forward propagating MCS from the west. It’s not out of the realm of possibility, but for us on shift we’ve never witnessed it in real-time. https://t.co/AIBLTz0cul

— NWS Kansas City (@NWSKansasCity) June 4, 2020

1-minute Mesoscale Domain Sector GOES-16 Infrared images from 0200-0800 UTC (below) include time-matched plots of SPC Storm Reports. Cloud-top infrared brightness temperatures reached -80ºC (violet pixels) around the time of the MCS merger.

GOES-16 “Clean” Infrared Window (10.35 µm) images, with SPC storm reports plotted in cyan [click to play animation | MP4]

With ample illumination from the Moon — in the Waxing Gibbous phase, at 93% of Full — a Suomi NPP VIIRS Day/Night Band (0.7 µm) image (below) shortly after the MCS merger revealed cloud-top gravity waves propagating outward from the center of the storm (along with numerous clusters of bright white pixels, highlighting areas of intense lightning activity):

Suomi NPP VIIRS Day/Night Band (0.7 µm) image [click to enlarge]

As the merged MCS dissipated during the day on 04 June, a Mesoscale Convective Vortex became evident on GOES-16 “Red” Visible (0.64 µm) images (below), which then moved across southeastern Missouri, far southern Illinois and western Kentucky (helping to initiate new convective activity).

GOES-16 “Red” Visible (0.64 µm) images [click to play animation | MP4]

Categories: GOES-16, Severe convection, Suomi NPP, VIIRS

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MCS merger over northwestern Missouri