California Gets Rain: a GOES view
Heavy rains have finally hit California, which declared a state of emergency on Wednesday January 4 due to extreme rainfall amounts. The GOES-West enhanced Band 9 imagery (6.9 µm, mid-level water vapor) illustrates how moisture associated with the recent similar Trans-Pacific atmospheric river generated heavy rainfall for much of California, Oregon, and Washington. Overlayed with NEXRAD radar reflectivity, the animation below paints a good picture of the rainfall that accumulated within the 21 hours shown.
The California Nevada River Forecast Center reports that some areas in northern California have already accumulated up to five inches of rain in the past 24 hours. Flooding has already created dangerous situations for the residents of California.
Readers can recreate the above animation and explore other GOES data using RealEarth, a free web-based visualization tool for satellite and other remote sensing weather products.