On 30 April, JMA Himawari-8 “Red” Visible (0.64 µm), Shortwave Infrared (3.9 µm) and “Clean” Infrared Window (10.4 µm) images (above) showed the formation of the first known pyrocumulonimbus (pyroCb) cloud of the 2019 Northern Hemisphere wildfire season. The pyroCb developed within the warm sector of an approaching midlatitude cyclone... Read More
JMA Himawari-8 “Red” Visible (0.64 µm) images (above) revealed circulations of ice within the Sea of Okhotsk (east of Sakhalin Island — station identifier UHSS is Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, Russia) on 17-18 April 2019. Wind stress from an occluded Gale Force Low moving through that region on the previous day (surface analyses) likely helped to... Read More
2.5-minute rapid scan JMA Himawari-8 Shortwave Infrared (3.9 µm) images (above) showed numerous thermal anomaly (or “hot spot”, darker red to black pixels) signatures of wildfires across southeastern North Korea and northeastern South Korea on 04 April 2019 (media story). The fires were fanned by strong west-southwest winds in the wake... Read More
A toggle between Suomi NPP VIIRS Day/Night Band (0.7 µm) and Infrared Window (11.45 µm) images (above) showed Category 4 Cyclone Veronica off the northern coast of Western Australia at 1716 UTC on 21 March 2019. Ample illumination from a Full Moon maximized the “visible image at night” capability of... Read More
