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Satellite signatures of a “sting jet”

By Scott Bachmeier •

GOES-16 Lower-level (7.3 µm) images, with hourly plots of buoy and ship reports [click to play MP4 animation]

GOES-16 Lower-level (7.3 µm) images, with hourly plots of buoy and ship reports [click to play MP4 animation]

Satellite signatures of a phenomenon known as a “sting jet” have been shown previously on this blog here, here and here. GOES-16 (GOES-East) Lower-level (7.3 µm) Water Vapor images (above) revealed another classic example of the “scorpion tail” signature of a sting jet associated with the rapidly-intensifying storm off the coast of North Carolina on 04 January 2018.

The passenger cruise ship Norwegian Breakaway was en route to New York City from the Bahamas when it experienced very strong winds and rough seas early in the morning on 04 January (media story) — it appears as though the ship may have been in the general vicinity of this sting jet feature (ship data), where intense winds were descending to the surface from higher levels of the atmosphere:

 

A comparison of GOES-16 (GOES-East) and GOES-13 Water Vapor images (below) demonstrated how the GOES-16 improvement in spatial resolution  (2 km at satellite sub-point, vs 4 km for GOES-13) and more frequent imaging (routinely every 5 minutes over the CONUS domain, vs 15-30 minutes for GOES-13) helped to better follow the evolution of the sting jet feature. The 2 known locations of the Norwegian Breakaway around the time period of the image animation are plotted in red.

"Water

Water Vapor images from GOES-16 (6.9 µm, left) and GOES-13 (6.5 µm, right), with the 2 known locations of the Norwegian Breakaway plotted in red [click to play MP4 animation]

The sting jet signature was also apparent on GOES-16 Mid-level (6.9 µm) and Upper-level (6.2 µm) Water Vapor images (below).

GOES-16 Mid-level (6.9 µm) images, with hourly plots of buoy and ship reports [click to play MP4 animation]

GOES-16 Mid-level (6.9 µm) images, with hourly plots of buoy and ship reports [click to play MP4 animation]

GOES-16 Upper-level (6.2 µm) images, with hourly plots of buoy and ship reports [click to play MP4 animation]

GOES-16 Upper-level (6.2 µm) images, with hourly plots of buoy and ship reports [click to play MP4 animation]

In addition, the sting jet signature was evident in a Suomi NPP VIIRS Day/Night Band (0.7 µm) image at 0614 UTC or 1:14 AM Eastern time (below). Through the clouds, the faint glow of city lights in far eastern North Carolina could be seen along the left edge of the image. The cloud features shown using the “visible image at night” VIIRS Day/Night Band were brightly-illuminated by the Moon, which was in the Waning Gibbous phase at 92% of Full; in addition, the hazy appearance just east of the tip of the sting jet cloud boundary was likely due to moonlight reflecting off of an agitated sea surface with large waves and abundant sea spray. A VIIRS instrument is also aboard the JPSS series of satellites, such as the recently-launched NOAA-20.

Suomi NPP VIIRS Day/Night Band (0.7 µm) image [click to enlarge]

Suomi NPP VIIRS Day/Night Band (0.7 µm) image [click to enlarge]

Another view of the sting jet signature was seen in a 250-meter resolution Aqua MODIS Infrared Window (11.0 µm) image at 0725 UTC (below).

Aqua MODIS Infrared Window (11.0 µm) image [click to enlarge]

Aqua MODIS Infrared Window (11.0 µm) image [click to enlarge]

Categories: Aqua, GOES-13, GOES-16, MODIS, Suomi NPP, VIIRS