An unusually strong area of low pressure moved northward into the Arctic Ocean and intensified during the 05 August – 08 August 2012 time period — a storm this deep (965 hPa central pressure) is exceptional for the Arctic Ocean region, especially during the summer month of August. A comparison... Read More

McIDAS images of 4-km resolution GOES-13 10.7 µm IR channel data (above; click image to play animation) showed Category 1 Hurricane Ernesto as it approached the far southeast coast of Mexico during the late afternoon and eary evening hours on 07 August 2012. The... Read More

Mount Tongariro in New Zealand (on the North Island) erupted on Monday, August 6th, for the first time in a century. A Suomi-NPP overpass at 12:52 UTC, approximately one hour after the eruption, allowed the day-night band to capture an image of the volcanic plume as it moved eastward across... Read More

The Visible-Infraread Imager Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) instrument on Suomi/NPP samples longwave radiation emitted at 11.45 µm and shortwave radiation emitted at 3.74 µm. Because liquid water clouds have different emissivity properties at those two wavelengths, the difference in brightness temperature can be used to determine the presence of clouds (such... Read More