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Tropical Storm Noel – Convective bursts

After spending some time meandering over Cuba and just off the northern coast of the island, Tropical Storm Noel began to intensify a bit and produce bursts of convection within its eastern semicircle as it started to move slowly northward during the day on 31 October 2007. AWIPS images of the GOES-12 10.7 µm... Read More

GOES-12 10.7µm IR images (Animated GIF)

After spending some time meandering over Cuba and just off the northern coast of the island, Tropical Storm Noel began to intensify a bit and produce bursts of convection within its eastern semicircle as it started to move slowly northward during the day on 31 October 2007. AWIPS images of the GOES-12 10.7 µm IR channel (above) revealed a significant increase in the areal coverage of very cold cloud top temperatures (below -80ºC, light green enhancement); in fact, isolated IR brightness temperatures as cold as -92º C (white pixels) were noted at 04:01 UTC on 01 November.

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Tropical Storm Noel

Tropical Storm Noel formed in the Caribbean Sea on 28 October 2007. A GOES-12 visible image with ASCAT winds sourced from the CIMSS Tropical Cyclones site (above) shows the cloudiness associated with the tropical storm, which was centered just south of Hispaniola. An animation of GOES-12 IR channel images (below) shows that a few bursts of... Read More

GOS-12 visible image + ASCAT winds

Tropical Storm Noel formed in the Caribbean Sea on 28 October 2007. A GOES-12 visible image with ASCAT winds sourced from the CIMSS Tropical Cyclones site (above) shows the cloudiness associated with the tropical storm, which was centered just south of Hispaniola. An animation of GOES-12 IR channel images (below) shows that a few bursts of convection developed in the northern quadrant of Noel during the day (also apparent in a 1-km resolution GOES-12 visible image animation).

GOES-12 IR images + ASCAT winds (Animated GIF)

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Grand Canyon, Arizona: smoke from local and distant sources

An end to the offshore Santa Ana wind regime and a change in the synoptic-scale flow pattern over the southwestern US (MODIS visible image + RUC model winds at 1 km and 2km AGL) resulted in a northward to northeastward transport of smoke from the ongoing Southern California fires on 26 October 2007. A 250-meter resolution MODIS true color image centered over the Grand... Read More

MODIS true color image

An end to the offshore Santa Ana wind regime and a change in the synoptic-scale flow pattern over the southwestern US (MODIS visible image + RUC model winds at 1 km and 2km AGL) resulted in a northward to northeastward transport of smoke from the ongoing Southern California fires on 26 October 2007. A 250-meter resolution MODIS true color image centered over the Grand Canyon in Arizona (above) shows a distinct smoke plume from a new fire that was burning along the north rim of the canyon, as well as a large amount of smoke covering the western portion of the Grand Canyon (which had been transported from the California fires).

A larger-scale MODIS true color image of the Southwest US (below) shows that the smoke from the southern California fires had spread as far as the San Joaquin Valley of California (even settling into some of the valleys along the western foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountain Range), southern Nevada, northwestern Arizona, and extreme southwestern Utah. The IDEA MODIS Aerosol Optical Depth trajectory product from the previous day provided a fairly accurate forecast of smoke transport.

MODIS true color image

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4-day composite of the southern California fires

The Wildfire Automated Biomass Burning Algorithm (WFABBA) team produced a 4-day composite of the southern California fires, covering the period 21-24 October 2007. By 26 October, nearly 500,000 acres (~780 square miles) were burned and over 1600 homes were destroyed.  The WFABBA product provides frequent, low latency detections and characterizations of fires such as these,... Read More

Wildfire ABBA 4-day composite (21-24 October 2007)

The Wildfire Automated Biomass Burning Algorithm (WFABBA) team produced a 4-day composite of the southern California fires, covering the period 21-24 October 2007. By 26 October, nearly 500,000 acres (~780 square miles) were burned and over 1600 homes were destroyed.  The WFABBA product provides frequent, low latency detections and characterizations of fires such as these, as well as the ability to build composites to show the overall development of the fires. Southern California fire activity can be monitored using WFABBA  from either GOES-11 or GOES-12.

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