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Mesoscale Convective Vortex helps to force the development of a Mesoscale Convective System over northwest South Dakota

By Scott Bachmeier •

5-minute GOES-19 Nighttime Microphysics RGB + daytime True Color RGB images, from 1201 UTC on 01 August to 0051 UTC on 02 August [click to play MP4 animation]

5-minute CONUS Sector GOES-19 (GOES-East) Nighttime Microphysics RGB + daytime True Color images from the CSPP GeoSphere site (above) showed a remnant Mesoscale Convective Vortex (MCV) that migrated eastward from southeastern Montana to northwestern South Dakota — where it helped to force the rapid development of a slow-moving Mesoscale Convective System (MCS) during the afternoon hours on 01 August 2025.

1-minute GOES-19 Red Visible (0.64 µm) images with time-matched (+/- 3 minutes) SPC Storm Reports plotted in red, from 2045 UTC on 01 August to 0127 UTC on 02 August [click to play animated GIF]

The MCS eventually began to produce periodic hail and damaging winds after 2100 UTC, as shown by 1-minute Mesoscale Domain Sector GOES-19 Visible images (above) and Infrared images (below) that included time-matched plots of SPC Storm Reports. The visible imagery revealed numerous pulses of overshooting tops, as well as intricate patterns of cloud-top gravity waves.

1-minute GOES-19 Clean Infrared Window (10.3 µm) images with time-matched (+/- 3 minutes) SPC Storm Reports plotted in blue, from 2045 UTC on 01 August to 0127 UTC on 02 August [click to play animated GIF]

Categories: GOES-19, Red-Green-Blue (RGB) images, Severe convection