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Vertically-propagating standing wave clouds downwind of the Coteau des Prairies in South Dakota

By Scott Bachmeier •

1-minute GOES-19 Visible (0.64 µm, left), Water Vapor (6.9 µm, center) and Infrared (10.4 µm, right) images from 1346-2300 UTC on 28 March — with hourly plots of surface wind barbs (white) and 30-minute peak wind gusts (cyan/yellow/red) [click to play MP4 animation]

1-minute Mesoscale Domain Sector GOES-19 (GOES-East) Visible, Water Vapor and Infrared images (above) showed the development of vertically-propagating standing wave clouds over far northeastern South Dakota — initiated by strong SW winds interacting with the topography of the Coteau des Prairies.

The coldest cloud-top infrared brightness temperatures of the standing wave cloud features were around -45C — which roughly corresponded to the 300 hPa pressure level (or an altitude just below 9 km), according to rawinsonde data from Aberdeen SD (below).

Plot of rawinsonde data from Aberdeen SD at 1800 UTC on 28 March [click to enlarge]

A toggle between the GOES-19 images at 1600 UTC and topography (below) included plots of surface wind barbs (white) and RAP model 850 hPa wind barbs (beige) at that time. This helped to visualize the strong flow across the higher terrain that was responsible for generating the standing wave clouds immediately downwind of the Coteau des Prairies.

GOES-19 Visible (0.64 µm, left), Water Vapor (6.9 µm, center) and Infrared (10.3 µm, right) images at 1600 UTC on 28 March — compared to topography [click to enlarge]

Wind gusts across and to the lee of the Coteau reached the 60-70 mph range (below).

Topography image with plots of wind gusts in the 60-70 mph range on 28 March [click to enlarge]

1-minute GOES-19 True Color RGB images from the CSPP GeoSphere site (below) revealed the quasi-stationary nature of the orographically-forced wave clouds.

1-minute GOES-19 True Color RGB images, from 1350-2300 UTC on 28 March [click to play MP4 animation]

Categories: General interpretation, GOES-19