Tropical Storm Eta over the Gulf of Mexico
A toggle between Suomi NPP VIIRS Infrared Window (11.45 µm) and Day/Night Band (0.7 µm) images at 0734 UTC (above) showed Tropical Storm Eta over the Gulf of Mexico (northwest of Cuba) on 10 November 2020. A large convective burst was seen southeast of the storm center, with concentric cloud-top gravity waves propagating radially outward from its lightning-illuminated core (intense lightning activity was causing the cluster of bright pixels on the Day/Night Band image).1-minute Mesoscale Domain Sector GOES-16 (GOES-East) “Clean” Infrared Window (10.35 µm), GLM Flash Extent Density and “Red” Visible (0.64 µm) images (below) showed Tropical Storm Eta from sunrise to sunset, as it continued a slow northward movement — pulsing overshooting tops occasionally exhibited infrared brightness temperatures of -90ºC and colder (yellow pixels embedded within darker shades of purple), and lightning activity persisted for much of the day.
===== 11 November Update =====
Eta once again reached Hurricane intensity at 1235 UTC on 11 November, as it approached the west coast of Florida. 1-minute GOES-16 Visible images (above) showed the partially exposed low-level circulation of Eta; however, it then weakened back to a Tropical Storm several hours later, at 1800 UTC.