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Hurricane Ian makes landfall in Florida

By Scott Bachmeier •

GOES-16 “Clean” Infrared Window (10.3 µm) and “Red” Visible (0.64 µm) images [click to play animated GIF | MP4]

Overlapping 1-minute Mesoscale Domain Sectors provided 30-second interval GOES-16 (GOES-East) “Clean” Infrared Window (10.3 µm) and “Red” Visible (0.64 µm) images (above) during a 7-hour period that included the landfall of Hurricane Ian along the southwest coast of Florida at 1905 UTC (Visible | Infrared) on 28 September 2022. Moving across very warm water (where buoy Sea Surface Temperature values were 82-85ºF), Ian intensified to a Category 4 hurricane at 1200 UTC, and further intensified as it neared the Florida coast to just below Category 5 strength (rated at 135 knot sustained winds). As Ian moved inland, peak wind gusts were as high as 140 mph, and heavy rainfall exceeded 10 inches within a 4-hour period (WPC Storm Summary). These strong winds quickly resulted in power outages to 96-99% of customers in DeSoto, Charlotte and Lee Counties by 2244 UTC — note the disappearance of surface plot data in the GOES-16 imagery after 20 UTC at sites such as Venice (peak gust 90 knots / 104 mph), Punta Gorda (peak gust 117 knots / 135mph) and Fort Meyers (peak gust 87 knots / 100 mph).

30-second GOES-16 Visible images with time-matched plots of GLM Flashes (below) indicated that lightning activity within the eyewall decreased as the eye of Ian approached the coast.

GOES-16 “Red” Visible (0.64 µm) images, with plots of GLM Flashes [click to play animated GIF | MP4]

In a comparison of ~500-meter resolution GOES-16 Visible and ~15-meter resolution Landsat-8 Operational Land Imager Panchromatic images valid at 1557 UTC — viewed using RealEarth (below) — the Landsat image provided a more detailed view of the cloud structures within the eye of Hurricane Ian as it was just off the west coast of Florida.

GOES-16 “Red” Visible (0.64 µm) and Landsat-8 Panchromatic (0.59 µm) images, valid at 1557 UTC [click to enlarge]

A closer look at the 15-meter resolution Landsat-8 Panchromatic image is available here.

Categories: GLM, GOES-16, Landsat, Lightning, Red-Green-Blue (RGB) images, Tropical cyclones