A large outbreak of wildfires occurred across parts of Texas and Oklahoma on 09 April 2009. GOES-13 visible images (above) showed several very large smoke plumes  drifting eastward across far northern Texas and far southern Oklahoma during the afternoon hours.  These fires... Read More

Strong winds were producing plumes of blowing dust across parts of southeastern New Mexico and the  Texas panhandle region on 14 December 2008 — this blowing dust was reducing surface visibility to 1 mile at Lubbock, Texas (station identifier KLBB). AWIPS images of the MODIS visible, “cirrus detection”, 3.7 µm shortwave IR,... Read More

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

There are a number of satellite signatures that denote areas of potential turbulence, and AWIPS images of the GOES-12 10.7 µm IR channel on 27 July 2008 (above) displayed two of the more common indicators: rapidly developing convection, and transverse banding. A decaying mesoscale convective system was moving southeastward across... Read More