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River valley fog in Wisconsin, Minnesota and Iowa

By Scott Bachmeier •

GOES-16 “Red” Visible (0.64 µm) images, with/without plots of 15-minute METAR surface reports [click to play animated GIF | MP4]

5-minute CONUS Sector GOES-16 (GOES-East) “Red” Visible (0.64 µm) images (above) showed narrow tendrils of river valley fog — along a portion of the Mississippi River and a few of its tributaries in Wisconsin, Minnesota and Iowa — which dissipated after sunrise on 05 May 2024.

GOES-16 MVFR Fog Probability derived product, with plots of 15-minute METAR surface reports [click to play animated GIF | MP4]

In southwest Wisconsin, the GOES-16 Marginal Visual Flight Rules (MVFR) Fog Probability derived product (above) correctly displayed an area of increased MVFR Probabillty just north of KCMY-KVOK beginning at 0801 UTC — and at 0901 UTC the visibility at the METAR site located within that region of higher probability dropped to 1/4 mile with fog. At 1101 UTC, surface reports at 2 sites in southwest Wisconsin reported Freezing Fog, with visibility as low as Zero to 1/4 mile. While the MVFR product did display low to medium probability values for some of the more pronounced areas of river valley fog, many of the fog features were too narrow to be resolved by the 2-km resolution Infrared data from GOES.

The GOES-16 Low Cloud Thickness derived product (below) indicated that most of the fog and low stratus across the region was only 500-800 ft thick — with some of the more pronounced areas of river valley fog exhibiting values of 1000-1200 ft.

GOES-16 Low Cloud Thickness derived product, with plots of 15-minute METAR surface reports [click to play animated GIF | MP4]

Categories: Fog detection, GOES-16