1-minute Mesoscale Domain Sector GOES-17 (GOES-West) “Clean” Infrared Window (10.35 µm) images (above) showed thunderstorms associated with the South Pacific Convergence Zone (SPCZ) on 21 February 2021. The 3 METAR stations plotted on the imagery are, from left to right, Hihifo Airport, Wallis and Fotuna (NLWW), Apia, Samoa (NSFA) and Pago Pago, American Samoa (NSTU).In spite... Read More
1-minute Mesoscale Domain Sector GOES-16 (GOES-East) “Red” Visible (0.64 µm) images (above) revealed the fracturing of land-fast ice in the far southern portion of Lake Michigan on 19 February 2021. Although the westerly wind speeds were not particularly strong — generally 15-20 knots over water, including Metop ASCAT winds early in the day — these winds... Read More
In the wake of a southward surge of arctic air across the central US — which produced surface temperatures as cold as -50ºF in Minnesota on 13 February — GOES-16 (GOES-East) Day Cloud Phase Distinction RGB images (above) showed the large areal extent of snow cover (brighter shades of green) across Oklahoma, New Mexico and Texas on 15 February 2021. In... Read More
Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) imagery can be used to produce very high resolution mapping of winds. Imagery is available in selected domains at this NOAA/OSPO website; OSPO is the Office of Satellite Product Observations. Data are available from three different satellites: Sentinel-1/Sentinel-2 (managed by the European Space Agency) and RADARSAT (managed by the Canadian Space Agency). These space-borne radars can... Read More
