If you thought that Tropical Storm Olga was the last gasp of the 2007 North Atlantic basin’s Tropical Cyclone season, think again: GOES-12 10.7 µm IR channel imagery (above; closer view) and 6.5 µm water vapor channel imagery (below) revealed a circulation southwest of the Azores on 29 December 2007 (centered near 28º... Read More

Two new sources of Google Earth satellite imagery are now available from SSEC: AVHRR images from the NOAA operational polar orbiting satellites, and MODIS images from the NASA Terra and Aqua satellites. An example of the AVHRR “false color” imagery (above) zooms in to show the deep snow cover that existed over much of the Upper Midwest... Read More

AWIPS images of the MODIS visible and 1.6 µm “snow/ice channel” images from 17 December 2007 (above) demonstrate the utility of the snow/ice channel for helping to identify areas of thin supercooled water droplet stratus clouds that exist over a snow-covered satellite scene (this MODIS imagery was mentioned in the NWS Milwaukee/Sullivan... Read More

AWIPS images of the MODIS visible and “snow/ice” channels from 13 December 2007 (above; closer view) reveal that much of the southeastern half of Iowa received a significant glazing of ice (0.25 to 1.0 inch) during a freezing drizzle/freezing rain event on 10-11 December. Snow and ice particles are very strong absorbers at the 1.6 µm wavelength of the... Read More