Lightning was the cause of a wildfire in southeastern Montana (about 45 miles east-southeast of Miles City) during the afternoon hours on 22 August 2008, which burned a total of about 2600 acres. AWIPS images of the MODIS 3.7 µm and GOES... Read More
On the current operational GOES-11 and GOES-12 satellites, data losses occur for several hours each day during the weeks centered around the Spring and Autumn equinox due to (1) Keep-Out Zones (KOZ), and (2) Eclipse. During KOZ, sunlight impinging upon the optical path of the instrument detectors requires the GOES... Read More
Areas of low cloudiness (such as stratus and/or fog) at night can be important aviation hazards, but they are sometimes difficult to identify simply by examining standard IR imagery. A comparison of 1-km resolution MODIS 11.0 µm and 4-km resolution GOES-12 10.7 µm “IR window” images (above) does not give... Read More
After passing over Key West on 18 August, Tropical Storm Fay made landfall along the Gulf Coast of the Florida peninsula on 19 August 2008. GOES-12 IR imagery from the CIMSS Tropical Cyclones site (above) showed that Fay... Read More
