This website works best with a newer web browser such as Chrome, Firefox, Safari or Microsoft Edge. Internet Explorer is not supported by this website.

CIMSS Satellite Blog

MENU

Severe thunderstorms in South Dakota

By Scott Bachmeier •

GOES-16 “Red” Visible (0.64 µm) and “Clean” Infrared Window (10.35 µm) images (with and without an overlay of GLM Flash Extent Density) [click to play animation | MP4]

GOES-16 “Red” Visible (0.64 µm) and “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) “Red” Visible (0.64 µm) and “Clean” Infrared Window (10.35 µm) images — with and without an overlay of GLM Flash Extent Density (above) showed the rapid development of thunderstorms along a cold front across eastern South Dakota on 30 August 2020. One particularly well-defined and long-lived Enhanced-V signature with an Above-Anvil Cirrus Plume (reference | VISIT training) was seen in the Visible and Infrared imagery, which extended northeastward from the core of a thunderstorm where large hail and tornadoes were occurring.

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]

1-minute GOES-16 Visible images with time-matched plots of SPC Storm Reports are displayed above, with the corresponding Infrared images 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]

There were some overshooting tops which exhibited infrared brightness temperatures as cold as -72ºC — a plot of 00 UTC rawinsonde data from Aberdeen, South Dakota (below) indicated that this was about 7ºC colder than the tropopause temperature of -66.1ºC.

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]

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