GOES-16 (GOES-East) “Red” Visible (0.64 µm) images (above) showed a well-defined mesoscale vortex (or “mesovortex”) moving southward across southern Lake Michigan on 31 December 2017. The default western GOES-16 Mesoscale Sector provided images at 1-minute intervals. This feature was responsible for brief periods of heavy snow at locations such as South Haven, Michigan KLWA... Read More

An AWIPS screen capture showing GOES-16 (GOES-East) Cloud Top Phase, Near-Infrared “Snow/ice” (1.61 µm), Cloud Phase brightness temperature difference (8.5 µm – 11.2 µm) and “Clean” Infrared Window (10.3 µm) images on 28 December 2017 (above) was provided by Dan Baumgardt and Dave Schmidt (NWS La Crosse) — they were inquiring as to the why the 1.61 µm... Read More

GOES-16 “Clean” Infrared Window (10.3 µm) images centered over Lake Erie (above) showed the evolution of lake effect snow bands on 25 December – 26 December 2017, which produced very heavy snowfall at locations such as Erie, Pennsylvania (station identifier KERI); a Mesoscale Sector provided images at 1-minute intervals. Some noteworthy snowfall records were set... Read More

GOES-16 “Red” Visible (0.64 µm), Near-Infrared “Snow/Ice” (1.61 µm) and Shortwave Infrared (3.9 µm) images (above) revealed signatures of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launch at 01:27 UTC on 23 December 2017 (5:27 PM Pacific time on 22 December). The arrows on the 01:27:24 UTC images indicate the bright pixels on the 0.64 µm and 1.61... Read More