Interesting wave features near Guadalupe Island
GOES-15 0.63 µm visible channel images (click to play animation)
Hat-tip to Matt Sitkowski and Carl Parker of The Weather Channel for the heads-up on some interesting wave features that could be seen in the vicinity of Guadalupe Island on McIDAS images of GOES-15 0.63 µm visible channel data (above; click image to play animation) on 24 February 2014. Apparently a gravity wave had propagated northwestward through the region during the morning hours, perturbing the depth of the marine boundary layer (MBL) such that undulations in the MBL stratocumulus clouds were quite evident. In addition, an unusual “dry pulse” propagated outward from Guadalupe Island (located in the center of the images). These wave features eventually became hidden as layers of middle and high clouds overspread the area from the southwest.
AWIPS images of GOES-15 0.63 µm visible channel data with overlays of Real-Time Mesoscale Analysis (RTMA) surface winds (below) showed that the surface flow was very light or even calm across much of the Guadalupe Island region during the time that the “dry pulse” was most evident on visible imagery.
GOES-15 0.63 µm visible images with RTMA surface winds