Strong winds on 14 October invigorated the Cameron Peak fire to the west of Fort Collins, producing an extensive smoke plume.  The Day Land Cloud Fire RGB, above, includes the near-infrared 2.25 µm channel (GOES-16 Band 6) that shows the active fire in red and the ‘Veggie’ Band at 0.87 µm (a... Read More

Radar imagery from the upper midwest at 1858 UTC, below, showed convection moving into lower Michigan. NUCAPS thermodynamics, above, suggest that the convection would not dissipate in Michigan. An elevated mixed layer with lapse rates of 7 C/km between 500 and 700 mb is indicated.NUCAPS Points for the afternoon pass... Read More

GOES-16 Visible imagery, above, during the late afternoon on 6 September, shows an invigoration of the Cameron Peak fire in Larimer County, Colorado, with visible evidence of a pyrocumulus development.  Are there tools a forecaster can use to anticipate such extraordinary afternoon fire growth?NOAA-20 overflew Colorado shortly after (NOAA-20 orbits can be... Read More

Tropical Storm Marco over the northwest Caribbean Sea, shown above in a toggle of GOES-16 ABI Clean window imagery (10.3 µm) and a NUCAPS diagnosis of 850-500mb lapse rates, is over very warm waters and in a region of favorably low diagnosed vertical wind shear. (Wind shear is from this website, (direct link to shear); the product is described here)  An inhibiting feature in strengthening, as noted in the National Hurricane Center discussion, is stable... Read More