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Arctic outbreak with snow cover extending to South Texas

By Scott Bachmeier •

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]

In the wake of a southward surge of arctic air across the central US — which produced surface temperatures as cold as -50ºF in Minnesota on 13 February — GOES-16 (GOES-East) Day Cloud Phase Distinction RGB images (above) showed the large areal extent of snow cover (brighter shades of green) across Oklahoma, New Mexico and Texas on 15 February 2021. In the RGB images, low-level supercooled water droplet clouds appear as pale shades of white.


A closer view of GOES-16 Day Cloud Phase Distinction RGB images (below) showed the far southern extent of snow cover across northern Mexico and southern Texas. Precipitation briefly transitioned from rain to snow as far south as Brownsville, but there was no accumulation at that site.

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]

GOES-16 Near-Infrared “Snow/Ice” (1.61 µm) images (below) revealed a number of lake effect cloud plumes across northern and eastern Texas, as cold air moved across the warmer waters of small lakes.

GOES-16 Near-Infrared “Snow/Ice” (1.61 µm) images, with and without plots of surface reports [click to play animation | MP4]

GOES-16 Near-Infrared “Snow/Ice” (1.61 µm) images, with and without plots of surface reports [click to play animation | MP4]

Farther north over the Texas Panhandle, GOES-16 “Snow/Ice” images (below) showed a small cloud plume originating at the Xcel Energy Harrington Station power plant just north-northwest of Amarillo (KAMA). Note the drop in surface visibility to 5 miles at 17 UTC — this was likely due to snow flurries as the cloud plume drifted over the airport.

GOES-16 Near-Infrared “Snow/Ice” (1.61 µm) images [click to play animation | MP4]

GOES-16 Near-Infrared “Snow/Ice” (1.61 µm) images [click to play animation | MP4]

A timely overpass of Landsat-8 provided a 30-meter resolution False Color RGB image at 1721 UTC, as viewed using RealEarth (below) — as the cloud plume drifted over the KAMA airport, the 17 UTC METAR surface report indicated that the cloud base was at 1000 feet.

Landsat-8 False Color RGB image [click to enlarge]

Landsat-8 False Color RGB image [click to enlarge]

===== 16 February Update =====

GOES-16 CIMSS Natural Color RGB images, with plots of Metop-A ASCAT winds and surface/ship reports [click to play animation | MP4]

GOES-16 CIMSS Natural Color RGB images, with plots of Metop-A ASCAT winds and surface/ship reports [click to play animation | MP4]

On the following day, GOES-16 CIMSS Natural Color RGB images with plots of Metop-A ASCAT winds (above) showed how Tehuano gap winds had moved through Chivela Pass in southern Mexico (topography) and were spreading out across the Gulf of Tehuantepec (south of Ixtepec, station identifier MMIT). The highest surface scatterometer wind speeds were 24 knots near the coast.

With a low sun angle maximizing forward scattering, a plume of blowing dust could be seen right after sunrise in GOES-17 (GOES-West) True Color RGB images created using Geo2Grid (below), moving southward across the Gulf of Tehuantepec.

GOES-17 True Color RGB images [click to play animation | MP4]

GOES-17 True Color RGB images [click to play animation | MP4]

Categories: GOES-16, GOES-17, Landsat, Metop, RealEarth, Red-Green-Blue (RGB) images, Satellite winds, Winter weather