The Day-Night Band on VIIRS, flying on the Suomi/NPP satellite gave an excellent view of Isaac at strong tropical storm strength in the northern Gulf of Mexico shortly after midnight on August 28 2012. VIIRS is providing something unique to forecasters: Visible imagery at night that allows easy identification of overshooting... Read More
McIDAS images of GOES-13 0.63 µm visible channel data (above; click image to play animation) showed the smoke plumes emanting from a number of large wildfires that were burning in parts of Idaho on 24 August 2012. Note that some of the low-altitude smoke was being channeled southward through valleys... Read More
GOES-14 is in SRSOR operations today and was well-positioned to monitor the flooding rains that occurred in Las Vegas (which received a daily record 1.65 inches of rainfall). The animation above shows cold cloud tops northeast of Las Vegas, with more convection moving in from the southwest. Click here for a large (85... Read More
Water clouds, such as those that develop when fog and low stratus form, have different emissivity properties at short IR wavelengths (around 3.9 µm) compared to longer IR wavelengths (around 11 µm). At shorter IR wavelengths, water cloud do not emit as blackbodies, meaning less radiation is emitted than is... Read More
