The Nighttime Microphysics RGB, above, over central Wisconsin (that’s Green Bay at the northeastern edge, and southeast Minnesota/northeast Iowa over the southwestern part, of the animation), shows a field of low clouds stretching west-southwest to east-northeast. Note however, the occasional appearance of redder pixels within the field (as shown in... Read More

Here’s a text received late on 8 May from a kid: “Hail today in Portland”. The animation above shows GOES-17 Visible (0.64 µm) imagery between 2201 UTC on 8 May and 0311 UTC on 9 May. The follow-up text answering the obvious question (What time?) was “Around 5 PM” —... Read More

The Geostationary Lightning Mapper (GLM) on GOES-16 and the Lightning Imaging Sensor (LIS, additional information here) on the International Space Station (ISS) both observe lightning. The GLM has nadir resolution of approximately 8 km, and is in geostationary orbit, about 36000 km above the Earth’s surface. In contrast, the LIS... Read More

Thunderstorms were slowly but surely edging their way dangerously close to Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, FL, on April 2nd. The New York Yankees and Atlanta Braves had just completed a spring training game at the stadium, when two people were struck by lightning in one of the parking lots surrounding the stadium (they were... Read More