McIDAS images of the GOES-14 6.5 µm water vapor channel data (above; also available as a QuickTime animation) revealed that a pair of stratospheric intrusion vortices developed over the Pacific Northwest region of the US on 26 December – 27 December 2009. The spin-up of these vortices occurred within the pronounced dry band that... Read More

Continental Flight 128, en route from Rio de Janiero to Houston on 3 August, encountered severe turbulence over the Atlantic Ocean just north of Hispaniola, according to AP Press reports. Other press reports suggest the turbulence occurred southeast of Puerto Rico (see this one from Bloomberg, for example), but flight tracking software available online shows... Read More

Yemenia Airways Flight 626 departed from Sana in Yemen and crashed after an aborted landing attempt at Moroni in the Comoros Islands off the east coast of Africa on 29 June 2009. Meteosat-7 11.5 µm IR images (above) showed that there was a strong southerly flow over the region on that... Read More

Moderate southwesterly flow aloft over the Rocky Mountains was aiding in the formation of mountain waves across much of Colorado and parts of the adjacent states on 22 June 2009. AWIPS comparisons of the 1-km resolution MODIS 6.7 µm water vapor image with the corresponding 4-km resolution GOES-12 6.5 µm water vapor image (above) and the 8-km resolution... Read More