Occluding cyclone over the eastern North Pacific Ocean
GOES-11 6.7 µm water vapor channel images (click image to play animation)
An animation of 8-km resolution GOES-11 6.7 µm “water vapor channel” images (above; click image to play animation) revealed a mid-latitude cyclone over the eastern North Pacific Ocean on 28 January – 29 January 2011 — and this cyclone was reaching the occluded stage of its life cycle, as seen by the classic water vapor image signature of dry air wrapping into the center of the circulation.
AWIPS images of the 10-km resolution GOES-11 sounder Total Column Ozone product (below) showed there were elevated levels of ozone (350 to 400 Dobson Units, green to red color enhancement) associated with this occluding cyclone.
GOES-11 sounder Total Column Ozone images
An AWIPS comparison of the 1-km resolution MODIS 6.7 µm water vapor image with the corresponding 8-km resolution GOES-11 6.7 µm water vapor image (below) demonstrated the advantage of higher spatial resolution for visualizing some of the finer details of the cyclone structure.
MODIS 6.7 µm and GOES-11 6.7 µm water vapor images