Himawari-8 (Imagery courtesy of JMA) captured the northward march of three sets of Internal Waves in the Banda Sea in late October, as shown above (MODIS True Color Imagery showed the waves as well). Because the internal waves affect the ocean surface, sun glint can make them visible via methods described here. The fine spatial and temporal resolution of... Read More

Tropical Cyclone Chapala is poised to make an unusual landfall on the Arabian Penisula over the weekend. The Suomi NPP VIIRS Day Night Band Imagery (courtesy William Straka, SSEC/CIMSS), above, from 2102 UTC on 29 October, shows a compact storm with curved bands of strong convection around an apparent eye.... Read More

Many of the islands in Indonesia have been shrouded in smoke for much of October. RGB composites from Himawari-8, above, for 0200 UTC on each day from 08-26 October 2015 testify to the dense smoke, especially over the island of Borneo. News reports suggest the haze will persist through the end of the year. This is in... Read More

GOES-15 (GOES-West) Infrared (10.7 µm) images (above; also available as an MP4 animation) displayed the formation of a ring of cold eyewall cloud-top IR brightness temperatures (in the -80 to -90º C range, violet colors) during the period of rapid intensification of Hurricane Patricia on 22 October 2015; the storm reached Category 5... Read More