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Mountain wave cloud south of the Brooks Range in Alaska

By Scott Bachmeier •

10-minute GOES-18 Infrared and Water Vapor images, from 0400-2300 UTC on 01 March; rawinsonde sites are plotted in red [click to play MP4 animation]

10-minute Full Disk scan GOES-18 (GOES-West) Infrared and Water Vapor images (above) showed the evolution of a mountain wave cloud south of the Brooks Range in northern Alaska on 01 March 2026. The coldest cloud-top infrared brightness temperatures were -61C (darker shades of red).

A toggle between GOES-18 Water Vapor and Infrared images at 1200 UTC (below) included a Topography image and 700 hPa wind barbs from the GFS model — which showed northerly winds flowing across the terrain of the Brooks Range, with the mountain wave cloud displaced to the south.

GOES-18 Water Vapor and Infrared images at 1200 UTC on 01 March, in addition to a topography image — with plots of GFS model 700 hPa wind barbs [click to enlarge]

A toggle between GOES-18 Infrared and Water Vapor images at 1800 UTC (below) included an image of 500 hPa Vertical Velocity — the bulk of the mountain wave cloud was co-located with the zone of middle-tropospheric upward vertical velocity (brighter shades of green).

GOES-18 Infrared and Water Vapor images at 1800 UTC on 01 March, along with an image of GFS model 500 hPa Vertical Velocity [click to enlarge]

A Suomi-NPP VIIRS Infrared image (below) displayed the mountain wave cloud at 1402 UTC. This cloud appeared to play a role in keeping the surface air temperature at Fort Yukon (PFYU) significantly warmer than surrounding sites (by limiting radiational cooling across the Yukon Flats).

Suomi-NPP VIIRS Infrared image at 1402 UTC on 01 March, with METAR surface reports plotted in blue [click to enlarge]

Categories: Arctic, GOES-18, Suomi NPP, VIIRS