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Archive: Nov 2011

Caughlin Wildfire near Reno, Nevada

The 2000-acre “Caughlin Fire” started burning around 08:45 UTC (1:45 am local time) in the hilly terrain near Reno, Nevada, and soon grew out of control due to strong winds gusting as high as 74 mph. McIDAS images of GOES-15 3.9 µm shortwave IR data (above) showed the “hot spot”... Read More

Mysterious Gravity Wave Over the Eastern Pacific Ocean

We received the following email from Ken Waters of the National Weather Service forecast office in Phoenix, Arizona:I noticed something interesting in this morning’s visible imagery off the Baja California coast. Here’s a link: https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B2ktDMIN5qWfODI2OTYzYjgtZjJkMS00MTU5LTk2ODctYzdhNzY5M2Y2MWIx I’m looking at the apparent wave pattern that’s going “upstream” towards the northeast whereas the low... Read More

Mountain waves over Colorado and New Mexico

A comparison of 8-km resolution GOES-11 6.7 µm water vapor channel, 4-km resolution GOES-13 and GOES-15 6.5 µm water vapor channel, and 1-km resolution Aqua MODIS 6.7 µm water vapor channel images (above) demonstrated how differences in satellite viewing angle as well as differences in satellite sensor spatial resolution have... Read More

Intense Bering Sea Extratropical Cyclone

McIDAS images of MTSAT-1R 6.7 µm water vapor channel data (above) showed an intense extratropical cyclone that was moving toward the Bering Sea region during the 07 November – 08 November 2011 time frame. Of particular interest was the presence of a very warm/dry (dark black) circular region within the... Read More