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Hurricane Ian makes landfall in South Carolina

By Scott Bachmeier •

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

1-minute Mesoscale Domain Sector GOES-16 (GOES-East) “Red” Visible (0.64 µm) images (above) showed Hurricane Ian as it made landfall as a Category 1 storm near Georgetown, South Carolina at 1805 UTC on 30 September 2022 — producing wind gusts as high as 92 mph and rainfall totals exceeding 5 inches. The low-level circulation center was mostly obscured by high clouds during the time period shown, though partial clearing did reveal some of the low cloud motions within the southeastern quadrant of the hurricane.

The hurricane center moved just east of Buoy 41004, where a wind gust to 64 knots / 74 mph was recorded several hours prior to the closest passage. The Buoy 41004 sea surface temperature as Ian moved through was 80ºF, with a cooling trend seen during the following 4 days (due to the upwelling of cooler sub-surface water, caused by wind-driven high waves).

GOES-16 Day Cloud Phase Distinction RGB images (below) helped to discriminate between the low-level clouds (shades of cyan) and mid to high-level clouds (shades of green to yellow).

GOES-16 Day Cloud Phase Distinction RGB images [click to play animated GIF | MP4]

GOES-16 “Clean” Infrared Window (10.3 µm) images (below) showed that the coldest cloud-top infrared brightness temperatures were around -70ºC (darker shades of red).

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

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