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“River effect” cloud bands and blowing snow in South Dakota

By Scott Bachmeier •

GOES-16 Day Snow-Fog RGB images, from 1501-2301 UTC on 13 January [click to play animated GIF | MP4]

GOES-16 (GOES-East) Day Snow-Fog RGB images (above) showed several well-defined “river effect” cloud plumes — resulting from cold arctic air flowing across unfrozen portions of the Lake Oahe reservoir along the Missouri River — in addition to widespread horizontal convective rolls (indicative of significant blowing snow and ground blizzard conditions) across parts of central and eastern South Dakota on 13 January 2024. At Pierre (KPIR) peak wind gusts during the time period shown reached 46 knots (53 mph), and the surface visibility was restricted to 1/4 mile at times — and even ~50 miles downwind of Lake Oahe at Chamberlain (K9V9) the visibility was as low as 3/4 mile at times within the cloud plume. Traffic along Interstate 90 near and east of Chamberlain was likely affected by precipitation falling from (and/or blowing snow in the vicinity of) the Lake Oahe cloud plumes.

A 30-meter resolution Landsat-9 “Natural Color” RGB (or Day Land Cloud RGB) image at 1730 UTC viewed using RealEarth (below) provided a more detailed look at a few of the cloud plumes developing over Lake Oahe and flowing southeastward. Open water appeared as dark shades of blue, while snow cover and ice appeared as shades of cyan.

Landsat-9 “Natural Color” RGB (or Day Land Cloud RGB) image at 1730 UTC, with and without labels [click to enlarge]

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