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Industrial plumes producing light snow in Wisconsin

By Scott Bachmeier •

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

GOES-16 (GOES-East) Near-Infrared “Snow/Ice” (1.61 µm) images (above) displayed industrial plumes (from sources such as power plants) that produced brief periods of light snow as they drifted over a few sites in northern Wisconsin on 22 January 2023. Particles emitted from industrial stacks acted as cloud condensation nuclei, “seeding” the surrounding supercooled water cloud droplets which then created a higher concentration of smaller cloud droplets — and these smaller cloud droplets were more efficient reflectors of incoming solar radiation, making the plumes appear slightly brighter than the surrounding clouds.

GOES-16 Day Snow-Fog RGB images (below) provided a bit more cloud-top contrast, helping to slightly enhance the appearance of the industrial plumes.

GOES-16 Day Snow-Fog RGB images, with and without plots of hourly surface reports [click to play animated GIF | MP4]

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