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Severe thunderstorms over the southern Plains

By Scott Bachmeier •

GOES-16

GOES-16 “Red” Visible (0.64 µm) and “Clean” Infrared Window (10.3 µm) images [click to play animation | MP4]

GOES-16 (GOES-East) “Red” Visible (0.64 µm) and “Clean” Infrared Window (10.3 µm) images viewed using AWIPS (above) showed the development of a large severe thunderstorm in the Texas Panhandle near Lubbock on 05 May 2019. A GOES-16 Mesoscale Domain Sector was positioned over the region, providing images at 1-minute intervals. A persistent quasi-stationary pulsing overshooting top was evident in both the Visible and Infrared imagery, and cloud-top infrared brightness temperatures were as cold as -80ºC at times — judging from 00 UTC Amarillo rawinsonde data, this represented an altitude of around 13 km. In addition, the presence of north-to-south oriented stable wave clouds in the Visible imagery marked the western edge of a residual convective outflow boundary from the previous evening.

The storm also exhibited very prominent Enhanced-V and Above-Anvil Cirrus Plume signatures — a toggle between 0015 UTC Visible and Infrared images (below) illustrated these two signatures.

GOES-16 "Red" Visible (0.64 µm) and "Clean" Infrared Window (10.3 µm) images at 0015 UTC on 06 May [click to enlarge]

GOES-16 “Red” Visible (0.64 µm) and “Clean” Infrared Window (10.3 µm) images at 0015 UTC on 06 May [click to enlarge]

GOES-16 Visible and Infrared images with plots of SPC storm reports viewed using McIDAS (below) showed that this individual thunderstorm produced tornadoes, large hail and damaging winds. Beginning at 2200 UTC, there was an overlap of both GOES-16 Mesoscale Domain Sectors over the Texas Panhandle, which provided imagery at 30-second intervals.

GOES-16 "Red" Visible (0.64 µm, left) and "Clean" Infrared Window (10.3 µm, right) images, with plots of SPC storm reports [click to play animation | MP4]

GOES-16 “Red” Visible (0.64 µm, left) and “Clean” Infrared Window (10.3 µm, right) images, with plots of SPC storm reports [click to play animation | MP4]

===== 07 May Update =====

GOES-16

GOES-16 “Red” Visible (0.64 µm, top left), Near-Infrared “Snow/Ice” (1.61 µm, top right), “Clean” Infrared Window (10.3 µm, bottom left) and Cloud Top Temperature product (bottom right) [click to play animation | MP4]

1-minute GOES-16 imagery (above) revealed another example of a supercell thunderstorm exhibiting Enhanced-V and Above-Anvil Cirrus Plume signatures north-northeast of Fort Stockton, Texas (station identifier KFST) on 07 May; these storms developed east of a dry line that was located in Far West Texas (surface analyses).

GOES-16 Visible and Infrared images with plots of SPC storm reports are shown below.

GOES-16 "Red" Visible (0.64 µm, left) and "Clean" Infrared Window (10.3 µm, right) images with plots of SPC storm reports [click to play animation | MP4]

GOES-16 “Red” Visible (0.64 µm, left) and “Clean” Infrared Window (10.3 µm, right) images with plots of SPC storm reports [click to play animation | MP4]

Categories: GOES-16, Severe convection