Today’s CIMSS Satellite Blog entry will take a step back and focus on the larger scale. We’ll begin with an animation of GOES-12 visible images from 25 June 2008 (above). Several items of interest are apparent in addition to the normal diurnal development of thunderstorms across parts of North and Central America:... Read More

Numerous wildfires were started by lightning activity across Northern California on 21 June 2008, and GOES-11 visible images from 22 June (above) showed a large number of smoke plumes drifting across that region. A MODIS true color image from the SSEC MODIS Today site (below) showed that areas of thick smoke remained across much of northern California on 23 June, with some... Read More

AWIPS images of the MODIS visible and 3.7 µm shortwave IR channels (above) showed smoke and a “hot spot” associated with a large wildfire that had burned over 30,000 acres in the Pocosin Lakes National Wildlife Refuge in northeastern North Carolina on 07 June 2008.The fire was started by lightning about... Read More

GOES-12 RGB composite images (above, using the visible and 3.9 µm shortwave IR channels) revealed a cluster of “hot spots” (red-enhanced pixels) and a large smoke plume drifting east/northeastward from a large grass fire located about 30 miles southeast of Fort Stockton, Texas on 01 May 2008. This fire — known as... Read More