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Tornadic Thunderstorm over eastern Colorado

By Scott Lindstrom •

NOAA/CIMSS ProbSevere Product, 1902-1922 UTC on 27 May 2015 [click to play very very large animation]

GOES-14 Visible Imagery (0.626 µm) animation, 1708 UTC 27 May 2015 – 0059 UTC 28 May 2015 [click to play very very large animation]

A tornado was reported near Yuma, CO, (SPC Storm Reports) at 1910 UTC on 27 May 2015. GOES-14 was in SRSO-R scanning mode, and a storm-centered animation of the visible imagery (0.626 µm) is shown above (Warning: the animation above is 270M; click here for an mp4, or view it on YouTube). Note that GOES-14 produces no imagery from 1900-1915 UTC when the satellite is performing daily station-keeping maneuvers. The tornado occurred early in the life of the supercell on which the animation centers.

The NOAA/CIMSS ProbSevere output for this storm is shown below. ProbSevere increased above 50% at 1904 UTC. The satellite information for the storm object was derived from GOES-13 data between 1730 and 1745 UTC, when strong growth occurred, and from 1745-1815 UTC when weak glaciation occurred (how the reduced time resolution at that time, when GOES-13 is scanning a full-disk image, affected the Glaciation estimates is not certain — ‘weak’ is probably a lower bound).

NOAA/CIMSS ProbSevere Product, 1902-1922 UTC on 27 May 2015 [click to play animation]

NOAA/CIMSS ProbSevere Product, 1902-1922 UTC on 27 May 2015 [click to play animation]

Categories: GOES-14, ProbSevere, Severe convection