Hurricane Beryl made a (final) landfall along the Texas Gulf Coast, near Matagorda TX, at about 4 AM CDT/0900 UTC on 8 July. VIIRS imagery, above, from the SSEC/CIMSS Direct Broadcast antenna, shows infrared (I05, 11.45 µm) imagery and Day Night Band visible (0.7 µm) imagery around the time of landfall. It is noteworthy that city lights are unable to penetrate the thick clouds (some of the reduction in light intensity might be due to power outages, as shown below from this source).

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GOES-16 Clean Window imagery overlain with GLM Flash Extent Density, below, shows the evolution of the storm from 0651 UTC through 1321 UTC on 8 July. Subsequent to landfall, the satellite presentation of the storm degrades, as expected. Heavy Rains and Storm Surge along the coast will remain threats through the day on the 8th.

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For the last hours of her time over the western Gulf of Mexico, Beryl was in a very favorable environment for strengthening. Shear values (source, shown below) were low and SSTs were very warm. Prior to this time, strengthening of Beryl was in part limited by a lack of an inner core, as shown in this microwave (36.5 and 89.0 GHz) toggle from 1916 UTC on 7 July, taken from the direct broadcast site at AOML; unfortunately, the 8 July 2024 morning passes of GCOM did not sample Beryl.

For the latest information on Beryl, refer to the National Hurricane Center and to local National Weather Service offices: Corpus Christi, Houston/Galveston, Lake Charles, Dallas/Fort Worth and Shreveport.

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GOES-16 infrared imagery, above, captures the landfall of Hurricane Beryl over Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula near the town of Tulum at 1105 (UTC) (NHC Discussion). Beryl continues a brisk motion (15 mph) towards the west-northwest, so its time over land will not be very long. This will affect its subsequent strength over the southwest Gulf of Mexico.

Interests in Mexico and Texas should closely monitor the progress of this storm. Refer to the National Hurricane Center for the latest updates. National Weather Service offices along the Texas Gulf Coast (Brownsville, Corpus Christi and Houston) will also have information.

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GOES-16 clean window infrared imagery, above, shows the evolution (at half-hourly intervals; in reality, 1-minute data was available of its passage, along with lightning) of Hurricane Beryl‘s cloud field as it moved just south of the island of Jamaica. The time-step above was degraded to allow a comparison to Hurricanes Gilbert, see this too, (with GOES-7 — a spinner! — imagery), Ivan and Dean (both with GOES-12 — 3-axis stabilized — imagery).

Gilbert moved east-to-west across Jamaica, and its eye re-intensified very quickly once back over the ocean. It would subsequently deepen to 888 hPa — then a record for the lowest sea-level pressure in the Atlantic/Caribbean basins. Ivan remained south of Jamaica and its eye changed perhaps as a result of the landmass of Jamaica. Ivan’s passage partially corresponded with GOES-12 in eclipse between the 0345 and 0645 UTC images; the batteries on GOES-12 were not sufficiently large to power scanning when GOES-12 was in Earth’s shadow. Dean passed south of Jamaica, and its eye seems to have been mostly unaffected by the close passages, although the cold cloud pattern did change.

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The GOES-U rocket launch on SpaceX Falcon Heavy provided an opportunity for GOES-East (16) and -West (18) to monitor the launch and booster re-entries. Both the operational GOES were taking special (research) ABI meso-scale sectors of the launch, with GOES-16 providing 1-min imagery and GOES-18 30-sec (both sectors). (More on how to submit an ABI meso research request.) The launch itself has a much stronger and longer signal in ABI imagery than the smaller boosters making re-entry.

A previous CIMSS Satellite Blog shows the GOES satellite signatures of the GOES-U launch, from both GOES-16 and GOES-18.

GOES-East

The meso-scale sector from GOES-16 offered images every minute over Florida.

Above is a short loop of the upper-level “water vapor” band on the ABI. Note the warming at approximately 21:33 UTC. The white pixels to the southwest of the circle is a cloud associated with the GOES-R rocket launch.

Another option to combine three of the ABI spectral bands is via the “rocket plume” RGB that during the day uses the 3.9 um “fire” band, the 6.2 um water vapor band and “red” visible band.

GOES-West

The meso-scale sector from GOES-18 offered images every 30 seconds over Florida, albeit at a relatively large view angle. This parallax isn’t an error, just a difference in viewing. This is why the rocket appears farther east when viewed from GOES-West. More on parallax using a webapp.

All 16 bands from GOES-18 ABI.

Landing

Falcon Heavy’s side boosters land on Landing Zones 1 and 2 pic.twitter.com/5RDbTGNnSq

— SpaceX (@SpaceX) June 25, 2024

H/T

Thanks to the large cast who built and launched GOES-U! The GOES ABI data was accessed via the UW/SSEC Data Services. McIDAS-X, geo2grid and AWIPS software was used to generate the images. More UW/CIMSS Satellite Blogs associated with rocket signatures.

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