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Lake Erie mesovortex, and an undular bore over the Dakotas

By Scott Bachmeier •

GOES-16

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

Two interesting small-scale features were seen in GOES-16 (GOES-East) imagery on 24 March 2020. First of all, 1-minute Mesoscale Domain Sector “Red” Visible (0.64 µm) images (above) showed a mesovortex that was migrating west-northwestward across Lake Erie during the day. This feature had a diameter of around 10 miles — such a small-scale circulation was not captured by Metop-A ASCAT surface scatterometer data.

During the preceding overnight hours, an early signature of the mesovortex was evident in Suomi NPP VIIRS Shortwave Infrared (3.74 µm) and “Fog product” Brightness Temperature Difference (BTD) images at 0806 UTC (below).

Suomi NPP VIIRS Shortwave Infrared (3.74 µm) and "Fog product" Brightness Temperature Difference (BTD) images [click to enlarge]

Suomi NPP VIIRS Shortwave Infrared (3.74 µm) and “Fog product” Brightness Temperature Difference (BTD) images [click to enlarge]

The second feature of interest was a pre-cold-frontal undular bore that was moving eastward across the Dakotas, as seen in Day Cloud Phase Distinction Red-Green-Blue (RGB) images (below).

GOES-16 Day Cloud Phase Distinction RGB images [click to play animation | MP4]

GOES-16 Day Cloud Phase Distinction RGB images [click to play animation | MP4]

Categories: GOES-16, Metop, Red-Green-Blue (RGB) images, Satellite winds, Suomi NPP, VIIRS