Pre-frontal undular bores in western Texas

By Scott Bachmeier • 10 March 2017

GOES-16 Visible (0.64 µm) images, with hourly surface reports [click to play animation]

GOES-16 Visible (0.64 µm) images (above; also available as an MP4 animation) showed multiple undular bores over western Texas on 10 March 2017. The wave packets were perturbing the low-altitude fog and stratus clouds across the region during the morning hours, in advance of a cold front that was approaching from the north. One bore was moving toward the south, while another (apparently deeper) bore was moving toward the southwest.

A plot of 12 UTC rawinsonde data from Midland (below) revealed the presence of a strong low-level temperature inversion from the surface to the 850 hPa  pressure level — this inversion was acting to duct the gravity waves as they propagated southward and southwestward.

12 UTC Midland, Texas rawinsonde data plot [click to enlarge]

GOES-16 0.64 µm Visible (top), 6.9 µm Water Vapor (middle) and 7.4 µm Water Vapor (bottom) images [click to play animation]

Categories: GOES-16