Persistent snow cover in Oklahoma and Kansas

By Scott Bachmeier • 8 December 2020

NOAA-20 VIIRS True Color and False Color RGB images [click to enlarge]

A toggle between NOAA-20 VIIRS True Color and False Color Red-Green-Blue (RGB) images (above) showed a patch of snow cover that remained across parts of northwestern Oklahoma, the Oklahoma Panhandle and southwestern Kansas on 08 December 2020. This was residual snow cover from a winter storm that occurred 6 days earlier (on 02 December — NWS Amarillo | NWS Norman | NWS Dodge City | NOHRSC total snowfall).

The GOES-16 (GOES-East) Land Surface Temperature (LST) product at 1900 UTC (below) displayed LST values in the 30s F (shades of cyan to blue) over the patch of snow cover, in stark contrast to LST values in the 60s F (shades of green) across adjacent areas of bare ground.

GOES-16 Land Surface Temperature product [click to enlarge]

GOES-16 Mid-level Water Vapor (6.9 µm) images (below) included plots of hourly surface weather type as the middle-tropospheric low responsible for the winter storm moved slowly across the region on 02-03 December.

GOES-16 Mid-level Water Vapor (6.9 µm) images, with plots of hourly surface weather type [click to play animation | MP4]

===== 09 December Update =====

NOAA-20 VIIRS True Color RGB images on 08 and 09 December [click to enlarge]

In spite of afternoon temperatures rising into the 50s and 60s F over surrounding bare-ground areas, a 08 December vs 09 December comparison of NOAA-20 VIIRS True Color RGB images (above) showed that the core of the residual snow cover remained intact — especially over Oklahoma — with minimal melting between the 2 days.

Categories: GOES-16, NOAA-20, Red-Green-Blue (RGB) images, VIIRS, Winter weather

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Persistent snow cover in Oklahoma and Kansas