Ocean water discoloration in VIIRS True-Color imagery above the Ahyi Seamount
The Ahyi Seamount is an underwater volcano in the northern Marianas that rises to within 137 m of the Pacific Ocean surface (Click here for more information). VIIRS True-color imagery within the past week shows discoloration in the ocean over the seamount location, suggestive of some sort of eruptive activity. (See this News Article). The image above using Suomi NPP VIIRS data, (annotated images courtesy Meteorologist Nick Slaughter at the National Weather Service office on Guam), shows slight discoloration in the box centered on the seamount location. The NOAA-20 true-color image below, shows the evolution of the discoloration in the 45 minutes between images.
A second Suomi NPP Pass also viewed the scene at 0408 UTC on 25 November 2022 (NPP Orbits for the 25th can be viewed here; the NOAA-20 orbits are here). The movement of the discoloration, as noted by the annotations, differs from the atmospheric flow.
Suomi NPP and NOAA-20 data over Guam are provided by a Direct Broadcast antenna attached to the office. Data are processed for AWIPS using CSPP, the Community Satellite Processing Package, and Polar2Grid.
Careful inspection of Suomi NPP True-Color imagery at the JStar Mapper reveals faint discoloration over the seamount on 23 November as well, as shown below.
Many Thanks to Nick Slaughter, WFO GUM, for both the imagery and the information on this event!