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Blowing dust across West Texas

By Scott Bachmeier •

GOES-16 Red Visible (0.64 µm) images with plots of surface wind barbs (white), peak wind gusts (cyan/yellow), ceiling/visibility (red) and surface fronts (beige), from 1446-2301 UTC on 30 December [click to play MP4 animation]

GOES-16 (GOES-East) Visible images (above) showed the hazy signature of a narrow plume of blowing dust that developed across West Texas on 30 December 2024. Lofted by strong NW winds behind a dryline, this blowing dust briefly reduced the surface visibility to 3.5 miles at Big Spring (KBPG) and 7 miles at Snyder (KSNK).

GOES-19 (Preliminary/Non-operational) True Color RGB images (top) and Dust RGB images (bottom), from 1701-2326 UTC on 30 December [click to play animated GIF | MP4]

True Color RGB and Dust RGB images — created using Geo2Grid — from GOES-19 (Preliminary/Non-operational) (above) and GOES-16 (below) revealed that the blowing dust’s light magenta signature in Dust RGB imagery was apparent before its hazy tan signature became evident in True Color RGB imagery.

GOES-16 True Color RGB images (top) and Dust RGB images (bottom), from 1701-2326 UTC on 30 December [click to play animated GIF | MP4]

Also of note was the earlier appearance of the dust’s hazy tan signature in GOES-16 True Color RGB imagery compared to GOES-19, as seen in a toggle of 2101 UTC images (below). This was due to a larger (and thus more favorable) forward scattering geometry from GOES-16 (positioned farther east over the Equator at 75.2°W longitude) compared to GOES-19 (positioned at 89.5°W longitude, during its post-launch testing).

GOES-16 vs GOES-19 True Color RGB image (top) and Dust RGB image (bottom) at 2101 UTC on 30 December [click to enlarge]

Categories: Air quality, Geo2Grid, GOES-16, GOES-19, Red-Green-Blue (RGB) images