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Severe thunderstorms exhibiting Above-Anvil Cirrus Plumes over the Dakotas

By Scott Bachmeier •

GOES-16 “Red” Visible (0.64 µm) and “Clean” Infrared Window (10.35 µm) images [click to play animation | MP4]

GOES-16 “Red” Visible (0.64 µm) and “Clean” Infrared Window (10.35 µm) images [click to play animation | MP4]

1-minute Mesoscale Domain Sector GOES-16 (GOES-East) “Red” Visible (0.64 µm) and “Clean” Infrared Window (10.35 µm) images (above) showed two severe thunderstorms along the North Dakota / South Dakota border region, which exhibited Above-Anvil Cirrus Plumes  (reference | VISIT training).

GOES-16 “Red” Visible (0.64 µm) images, with time-matched SPC Storm Reports plotted in red [click to play animation | MP4]

GOES-16 “Red” Visible (0.64 µm) images, with time-matched SPC Storm Reports plotted in red [click to play animation | MP4]

A longer animation of GOES-16 Visible images with plots of time-matched SPC Storm Reports is shown above, with GOES-16 Infrared images shown below.

GOES-16 “Clean” Infrared Window (10.35 µm) images, with time-matched SPC Storm Reports plotted in cyan [click to play animation | MP4]

GOES-16 “Clean” Infrared Window (10.35 µm) images, with time-matched SPC Storm Reports plotted in cyan [click to play animation | MP4]

Pulsing overshooting tops were seen whose cloud-top infrared brightness temperatures were in the -70 to -78ºC range — according to a plot of 00 UTC rawinsonde data from Aberdeen, South Dakota (below), this represented a 1-2 km overshoot of the Most Unstable (MU) air parcel’s Equilibrium Level (EL).

Plot of 00 UTC rawinsonde data from Aberdeen, South Dakota [click to enlarge]

Plot of 00 UTC rawinsonde data from Aberdeen, South Dakota [click to enlarge]

Several hours later, another thunderstorm that produced damaging winds in southwestern North Dakota exhibited a residual Above-Anvil Cirrus Plume in central North Dakota as the storm was dissipating, seen in Suomi NPP VIIRS Infrared Window (11.45 µm) and Day/Night Band (0.7 µm) images at 0915 UTC (below). Coldest cloud-top infrared brightness temperatures in the overshooting top region were in the -60 to -66ºC range, while within the warmer AACP feature extending eastward they were in the -52 to -55ºC range.

Suomi NPP VIIRS Infrared Window (11.45 µm) and Day/Night Band (0.7 µm) images [click to enlarge]

Suomi NPP VIIRS Infrared Window (11.45 µm) and Day/Night Band (0.7 µm) images [click to enlarge]

Categories: GOES-16, Severe convection, Suomi NPP, VIIRS