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Damaging winds from a severe thunderstorm in Texas

By Scott Bachmeier •

GOES-16 "Clean" Infrared Window (10.35 µm) images, with and without an overlay of GLM Flash Extent Density [click to play animation | MP4]

GOES-16 “Clean” Infrared Window (10.35 µm) images, with and without an overlay of GLM Flash Extent Density [click to play animation | MP4]

1-minute Mesoscale Domain Sector GOES-16 (GOES-East) “Clean” Infrared Window (10.35 µm) images, with and without an overlay of GLM Flash Extent Density (above) showed an isolated large thunderstorm moving east-southeastward across the Mexico/Texas border region during the early evening hours on 27 April 2020. Concentric storm-top gravity waves could be seen propagating radially outward from the storm center (for example, at 0211 UTC) — and pulsing overshooting tops were evident, with the coldest cloud-top infrared brightness temperature of -77.5ºC  occurring at 0128 UTC.

After about 0030 UTC, the GLM Flash Extent Density (FED) began to increase with this storm — in fact, the FED just northwest of Del Rio International Airport (KDRT) rapidly rose from 122 flashes per 5 minutes at 0119 UTC to 189 flashes per 5 minutes at 0139 UTC. During the period of this lightning jump, damaging winds — including a wind gust of 77 mph at KDRT at 0135 UTC — occurred in the Del Rio area (SPC Storm Reports).

Categories: GLM, GOES-16, Lightning, Severe convection