1-minute Mesoscale Domain Sector GOES-18 (GOES-West) nighttime Dust RGB + daytime True Color RGB images created using Geo2Grid (above) revealed a plume of resuspended volcanic ash (shades of pink/magenta at night, hazy shades of tan during the day) from the 1912 Novarupta-Katmai eruption in Alaska — which was being transported offshore across the Shelikof Strait toward Kodiak Island on 07 April 2025. In the absence of snow cover, surface volcanic ash within the Valley Of Ten Thousand Smokes was being lofted by strong northwesterly winds that were being channeled through the valley. An advisory issued by the Anchorage Volcanic Ash Advisory Center (text | graphic) indicated that the resuspended ash layer extended to maximum altitude of 6000 ft.

In an animation of 1-minute GOES-18 Visible images (below) it is interesting to note that Buoy 46077 in the Shelikof Strait was situated within an eddy of relatively light and variable winds — and there appeared to be minimal amounts of resuspended ash that had become entrained within that eddy.

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GOES-16 became the operational GOES-East back in December of 2017 (link). At 1510 UTC, GOES-19 replaced by GOES-16 as the operational GOES-East. GOES-16 is now the back-up satellite for GOES-East and GOES-West, and will presently move to the storage position at 105^oW. The animation below from the CSPP Geosphere site shows GOES-16 and then GOES-19 true-color imagery. There is a subtle color change that occurs between 1456 and 1506 UTC; a very subtle change in the brightness in the blue band (Band 1 at 0.47 µm) is also present. (This color change is discernible in GeoColor at the CIRA SLIDER, as shown in this side-by-side view from 1456 UTC — GOES-16 on the left, GOES-19 on the right). NOAA Scientists are investigating this difference.

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During what was the last full day of GOES-16’s duty as GOES-East, a comparison of Shortwave Infrared Images from GOES-16 and GOES-19 (Preliminary/Non-operational) (above) showed thermal signatures of prescribed burning in the Flint Hills area of eastern Kansas. These annual Springtime prescribed burns are performed by cattle ranchers in order to remove thatch and weeds that compete with the native grasses, to improve the rangeland grasses for livestock grazing. Other examples of Flint Hills burning activity have been documented here on this blog.

GOES-16 Visible images with an overlay of the Fire Mask derived product (a component of the GOES Fire Detection and Characterization Algorithm FDCA) also depicted the areal coverage and diurnal behavior of the fire thermal signatures (below).

The smoke plumes from this prescribed burning activity were better visualized using GOES-16 True Color RGB imagery from the CSPP GeoSphere site (below).

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Light winds and clear skies with High Pressure over the western Great Lakes fostered the development of a warm(ish) patch of water over central Lake Michigan on 6 April 2025. (This has happened before!) Light winds means little vertical mixing in the surface layer of the lake, and solar insolation can heat the water. The warmest temperature diagnosed by the ACPSO algorithm was 43^oF, green in the enhancement used above.

GOES-16 Lake Surface Temperatures, below, show the temporal evolution of the warm eddy, with warmest temperatures between 1700 and 1900 UTC. A mid-lake temperature sensor warms 3 degrees during the day. In addition, lake breezes develop over coastal Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana and Michigan, just what one might expect in a light wind regime as the land becomes warmer relative to the still-cold lakes.

A timely Metop-C overpass on 6 April produced the ASCAT wind plot shown below (from this source). Very light winds were present over southern Lake Michigan.

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