Stratospheric intrusion vortices over the East Pacific Ocean
GOES-15 6.5 µm water vapor channel images (click to play animation)
GOES-15 6.5 µm water vapor channel images (above; click image to play animation; also available as an MP4 movie file) showed the development of a train of stratospheric intrusion vortices over the East Pacific Ocean during the 07 August – 08 August 2014 period. These vortices formed along a middle to upper tropospheric wind shear axis, and propagated toward the northeast.
The corresponding GOES sounder Total Column Ozone product (below; click image to play animation) revealed ozone values as high as 375 Dobson Units (lighter green color enhancement) within the more well-defined stratospheric intrusion vortices, due to the fact that ozone-rich stratospheric air was descending as the tropopause heights were lowered within the cyclonic vortex circulations.
GOES sounder Total Column Ozone product (click to play animation)
Other examples of stratospheric intrusion vortices can be found here, here, here, and here.