Every Spring and Fall Equinox season, a brief period of solar Radio Frequency Interference (RFI) occurs whenever the Sun passes into the beam of a GOES ground station receiving antenna (2023 NOAA ESPC Notification). This RFI can cause a temporary degradation or even a complete loss of data reception. The exact time of... Read More
GOES-16 “Clean” Infrared Window images, from 1650-1730 UTC on 01-06 March [click to play animated GIF | MP4]
During the Spring of 2024, Full Disk images showed that the time of maximum RFI signal loss was 1700 UTC on 01-05 March for GOES-16 (GOES-East) (above), and 2140 UTC on 02-05 March for GOES-18 (GOES-West) (below).
GOES-18 “Clean” Infrared Window images, from 2130-2150 UTC on 02-06 March [click to play animated GIF | MP4]
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Parts of the Hawaiian Islands have been placed under Flood Warnings on 4 March 2024 (Link). Part of the reason for these heavy rains is unusually cold air aloft, at 500 mb. The animation above (from the CSPP Geosphere site — a direct link to the animation is here) shows a... Read More
Parts of the Hawaiian Islands have been placed under Flood Warnings on 4 March 2024 (Link). Part of the reason for these heavy rains is unusually cold air aloft, at 500 mb. The animation above (from the CSPP Geosphere site — a direct link to the animation is here) shows a characteristic color change in the Night Microphysics around the Hawai’ian islands as convective showers develop, from light pinks/whites to red. How cold are the temperatures at 500 mb that are helping support this convection?
Soundings at Lihue at 0000 UTC on 2 March and 1200 UTC 4 March (above, from the University of Wyoming sounding site) show consistenly cold temperatures, at -14.7oC, although temperatures were warmer on 3 March, closer to -11oC. The 500-mb temperatures on 4 March at 1200 UTC were colder than all but <10% of the observations per the analysis below from the SPC Sounding analysis site.
NOAA-20 NUCAPS profiles give twice-daily estimates of thermodynamic variables over the Hawai’ian islands. These profiles are an important data source over ocean regions where conventional data are otherwise rare. The analyses near 0000 and 1200 UTC on 4 March 2024, below, show the large extent of cold temperatures at 500 mb, with temperatures between -14 and -16oC just north of Kauai. Temperatures are warmer over the big Island of Hawai’i. Use NUCAPS profiles to monitor cold temperatures at 500 mb when unusual cold is ongoing.
The gridded NUCAPS fields above are from AWIPS. You can also access them at this RealEarth site, and at this site maintained by SPoRT. The animation below of imagery from the SPoRT site shows values from 1200 UTC 2 March through 1200 UTC 4 March. Colder air overspread the western Hawaiian islands on the 4th.
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5-minute CONUS Sector GOES-16 (GOES-East) Shortwave Infrared (3.9 µm), Near-Infrared “Snow/Ice” (1.61 µm), Fire Mask (a component of the GOES Fire Detection and Characterization Algorithm FDCA) and Near-Infrared “Cloud Particle Size” (2.24 µm) images (above) displayed the thermal signatures associated with a storage facility fire — which was responsible for 1 fatality and... Read More
GOES-16 Shortwave Infrared (3.9 µm, top left), Near-Infrared “Snow/Ice” (1.61 µm, top right), Fire Mask (bottom left) and Near-Infrared “Cloud Particle Size” (2.24 µm, bottom right) [click to play animated GIF | MP4]
With a thin layer of mid-level clouds moving across the region, the fire signature was somewhat attenuated — so the AWIPS Color Table Ranges were adjusted to better highlight the feature: 3.9 µm image max/min values were set to 40/-30, with the 1.61 µm and 2.24 µm image max/min values set to 50/0.
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GOES-16 (GOES-East) SO2 RGB images created using Geo2Grid (above) showed the volcanic cloud (lighter shades of cyan) resulting from an eruption of La Cumbre (Fernandina) in the Galápagos Islands on 03 March 2024. The thermal anomaly at the volcano summit — which first became apparent at 0550 UTC — appeared as clusters... Read More
GOES-16 SO2 RGB images, from 0500-2100 UTC on 03 March [click to play animated GIF | MP4
GOES-16 (GOES-East) SO2 RGB images created using Geo2Grid (above) showed the volcanic cloud (lighter shades of cyan) resulting from an eruption of La Cumbre (Fernandina) in the Galápagos Islands on 03 March 2024. The thermal anomaly at the volcano summit — which first became apparent at 0550 UTC — appeared as clusters of darker blue pixels.
A comparison of False Color RGB images and retrieved Ash products from the NOAA/CIMSS Volcanic Cloud Monitoring site (below) indicated that this particular volcanic cloud was entirely SO2-dominated, with no signature of appreciable ash content.
GOES-16 False Color RGB (top left), Ash Height (top right), Ash Effective Radius (bottom left) and Ash Loading (bottom right) [click to play animated GIF | MP4]
GOES-16 True Color RGB images from the CSPP GeoSphere site (below) showed the hazy signature of the volcanic cloud during the daytime hours (although bright sun glint off the ocean temporarily masked its appearance).
GOES-16 True Color RGB images, from 1240-2250 UTC on 03 March [click to play MP4 animation]
===== 04 March Update =====
GOES-16 SO2 RGB images, from 0500 UTC on 03 March to 2350 UTC on 04 March [click to play animated GIF| MP4]
A longer animation of GOES-16 SO2 RGB images (above) showed that while the emission of a volcanic cloud continued into the following day, its areal coverage and SO2 concentration (inferred from the cloud’s color intensity in the RGB imagery) had diminished by the end of the day on 04 March. There was, however, notable dispersion of the SO2 cloud during the initial 24-hour period following the eruption.
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