Curved contrails south of Dallas/Fort Worth
5-minute GOES-19 Red Visible (0.64 µm, left) and Near-Infrared “Cirrus” (1.38 µm), Mid-level Water Vapor (6.9 µm) and Clean Infrared Window (10.3 µm) images (right), from 1256-1501 UTC on 16 March; rawinsonde sites are plotted in red, while airport identifiers are plotted in gray [click to play MP4 animation]
5-minute GOES-19 (GOES-East) Visible, Near-Infrared “Cirrus”, Mid-level Water Vapor and Clean Infrared Window images (above) displayed a set of curved contrails that formed south-southeast of Dallas/Fort Worth — created by 2 passenger aircraft in a holding pattern before eventually landing at Houston’s George Bush Intercontinental Airport (KIAH) — which then drifted southeast toward the Texas coast on the morning of 16 March 2026.
The curved contrails were also seen in GOES-19 True Color images (below).
5-minute GOES-19 True Color RGB images, from 1301-1501 UTC on 16 March [click to play MP4 animation]
A plot of rawinsonde data from Fort Worth at 1200 UTC (below) showed a moist layer from 294-217 hPa (30000-36000 ft), where these contrails likely developed and persisted.
Plot of rawinsonde data from Fort Worth, Texas at 1200 UTC on 16 March [click to enlarge]