The toggle of true-color MODIS imagery above, (taken from the MODIS Today website) shows Terra MODIS imagery on 14 and 15 January 2024. The 14th was the first day of an Arctic outbreak over deep snowcover in the upper Midwest; Madison WI was at/below zero the entire day. As a consequence, many lakes that were open water on the morning of the 14th (when Terra overflew WI around 1600 UTC) were ice-covered on the morning of the 15th (when Terra overflew WI around 1630 UTC). The image below shows the 14 January imagery with some lakes named. In particular, Lake Monona and parts of Mendota froze between the 14th and 15th; many of the lakes northwest of Pewaukee Lake froze; Delavan Lake froze. Green Lake, Lake Mendota and Lake Geneva are all quite deep and therefore somewhat resistant to quick freezing, but will likely freeze over soon given the forecast.

GOES-16 animations (taken from the CSPP Geosphere site) from 14 January (above) and 15 January (below) also show the change in ice coverage.

---

Mid-January is on the late side for lakes to freeze over Wisconsin. A warm December is to blame! Part of this is due to the ongoing Strong El Nino. In 1982-1983, a strong El Nino (as depicted at the start of this video; also shown here) similarly delayed Mendota’s freezing to mid-January.

View only this post Read Less

A distinct hot thermal signature (black to yellow to red pixels) of the Hagafell-Grindavik fissure eruption in southwestern Iceland was apparent in GOES-16 (GOES-East) Shortwave Infrared (3.9 µm) imagery on 14 January 2023 (above). Station identifier BIRK is Reykjavik Airport, and BIKF is Keflavik International Airport.

Since the fissure eruption and subsequent lava flows began during the nighttime hours, the thermal signature also showed up well in GOES-16 Near-Infrared 1.61 µm and 2.24 µm imagery (below).

View only this post Read Less

1-minute Mesoscale Domain Sector GOES-18 (GOES-West) images from all 16 of the ABI spectral bands (above) displayed signatures of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket that was launched from Vandenberg Space Force Base, California at 0859 UTC on 14 January 2024. Either a reflectance signature or a warm thermal signature of the Stage 1 rocket booster was evident in images from 15 of the 16 spectral bands (Bands 02-16) — and a signature of the low-altitude rocket launch condensation cloud was seen in Shortwave Infrared and Infrared spectral bands 07-16 as it drifted eastward.

A close-up view using 16-panel displays of all GOES-18 ABI spectral bands (below) showed that either a reflectance or a thermal signature of the Stage 1 rocket booster was evident in most of the Visible and Near-Infrared bands (02/03/04/05/06) at 0900 UTC, along with a warm thermal signature in Infrared bands 07/08/09/10/16. After that time, a colder thermal signature of the rocket launch condensation cloud was seen in Bands 07-16 as it drifted eastward.

View only this post Read Less

GOES-16 (GOES-East) Day Snow-Fog RGB images (above) showed several well-defined “river effect” cloud plumes — resulting from cold arctic air flowing across unfrozen portions of the Lake Oahe reservoir along the Missouri River — in addition to widespread horizontal convective rolls (indicative of significant blowing snow and ground blizzard conditions) across parts of central and eastern South Dakota on 13 January 2024. At Pierre (KPIR) peak wind gusts during the time period shown reached 46 knots (53 mph), and the surface visibility was restricted to 1/4 mile at times — and even ~50 miles downwind of Lake Oahe at Chamberlain (K9V9) the visibility was as low as 3/4 mile at times within the cloud plume. Traffic along Interstate 90 near and east of Chamberlain was likely affected by precipitation falling from (and/or blowing snow in the vicinity of) the Lake Oahe cloud plumes.

A 30-meter resolution Landsat-9 “Natural Color” RGB (or Day Land Cloud RGB) image at 1730 UTC viewed using RealEarth (below) provided a more detailed look at a few of the cloud plumes developing over Lake Oahe and flowing southeastward. Open water appeared as dark shades of blue, while snow cover and ice appeared as shades of cyan.

View only this post Read Less