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Tropical Storm Barry

By Scott Bachmeier •

GOES-16 "Red" Visible (0.64 µm) and "Clean" Infrared Window (10.35 µm) images, with plots of buoy and ship reports [click to play MP4 animation]

GOES-16 “Red” Visible (0.64 µm) and “Clean” Infrared Window (10.35 µm) images, with plots of buoy and ship reports [click to play MP4 animation]

Tropical Storm Barry formed in the far northern Gulf of Mexico on 11 July 2019 — 1-minute Mesoscale Domain Sector GOES-16 (GOES-East) “Red” Visible (0.64 µm) and “Clean” Infrared Window (10.35 µm) images (above) displayed increasing convection associated with the tropical cyclone. The coldest cloud-top infrared brightness temperatures were -86ºC.

As was seen in an animation of GOES-16 Infrared imagery from the CIMSS Tropical Cyclones site (below), Barry was in an environment of low deep-layer wind shear — a factor that was favorable for further intensification.

GOES-16 Infrared (11.2 µm) images, with contours of deep-layer wind shear [click to enlarge]

GOES-16 Infrared (11.2 µm) images, with contours of deep-layer wind shear [click to enlarge]

===== 12 July Update =====

GOES-16

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

1-minute GOES-16 Visible images (above) revealed a mesovortex that was rotating counter-clockwise around the low-level circulation center of Barry, which was approaching the coast of Louisiana on 12 July. Note that the METAR site located immediately east of the mesovortex around 17 UTC — KMDJ, Mississippi Canyon Oil Platform — had a wind gust of 73 knots or 84 mph around that time (and later had a wind gust to 90 mph at 2135 UTC or 4:35 PM CDT)

The corresponding GOES-16 Infrared images (below) showed that deep convection remained to the south of the center of Barry.

GOES-16 "Clean" Infrared Window (10.35 µm) images [click to play animation | MP4]

GOES-16 “Clean” Infrared Window (10.35 µm) images [click to play animation | MP4]

===== 17 July Update =====

Aqua MODIS Sea Surface Temperature product [click to enlarge]

Aqua MODIS Sea Surface Temperature product on 09 July [click to enlarge]

An Aqua MODIS Sea Surface Temperature image 2 days prior to the formation of Tropical Storm Barry (above) showed SST values in the upper 80s to low 90s F (darker shades of orange to red) in the northern Gulf of Mexico just south of Louisiana.

8 days later, a Terra MODIS SST image (below) revealed values predominantly in the lower to middle 80s F (green to yellow enhancement) — the slow movement of Barry as it eventually reached hurricane intensity just prior to landfall induced an upwelling of cooler sub-surface water over that area.

Terra MODIS Sea Surface Temperature product on 17 July [click to enlarge]

Terra MODIS Sea Surface Temperature product on 17 July [click to enlarge]

Categories: Aqua, GOES-16, MODIS, Satellite winds, Terra, Tropical cyclones