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Severe thunderstorms across Iowa and llinois

By Scott Bachmeier •

GOES-16 Visible/Infrared Sandwich RGB images, with Local Storm Reports plotted in cyan [click to play animated GIF | MP4]

1-minute Mesoscale Domain Sector GOES-16 (GOES-East) Visible/Infrared Sandwich RGB images from 1257-1950 UTC on 04 April 2023  (above) showed thunderstorms that produced hail up to 4.0 inches in diameter in Iowa and a wind gust to 90 mph in Illinois (along with a brief tornado) (SPC Storm Reports).

1-minute GOES-16 Visible/Infrared Sandwich RGB images with an overlay of GLM Flash Extent Density (below) revealed several lightning jumps as the storms moved eastward during that time period.

GOES-16 Visible/Infrared Sandwich RGB images with an overlay of GLM Flash Extent Density (and Local Storm Reports plotted in cyan) [click to play animated GIF | MP4]

GOES-16 “Clean” Infrared Window (10.3 µm) and “Red” Visible (0.64 µm) images at 1727 UTC [click to enlarge]

The Sandwich RGB images helped to highlight the presence of Above-Anvil Cirrus Plumes (reference | VISIT training) — and one of the more prominent AACP examples is shown in a toggle between GOES-16 “Clean” Infrared Window (10.3 µm) and “Red” Visible (0.64 µm) images at 1727 UTC (above). With the northernmost storm, the coldest cloud-top 10.3 µm infrared brightness temperature in the overshooting top area was -71ºC (darker shades of red), in contrast to the warmer downwind plume where infrared brightness temperatures were around -59 to -60ºC (brighter shades of yellow).

According to a plot (source) of 1800 UTC rawinsonde data from Quad Cities, Iowa (below), the -71ºC infrared brightness temperature corresponded to a Most Unstable (MU) air parcel overshoot of about 1 km from its 200 hPa Equilibrium Level (EL), while the -60ºC AACP infrared brightness temperature was close to those seen in the stratospheric portion of the sounding.

Plot of 1800 UTC rawinsonde data from Quad Cites, Iowa [click to enlarge]

Categories: GLM, GOES-16, Lightning, Red-Green-Blue (RGB) images, Severe convection