Mostly clear skies over the Gulf of Mexico early on 7 December 2022 allowed for data from the VIIRS instrument on Suomi-NPP to be used to create a near-complete image of the ACSPO (Advanced Clear-Sky Processor for Ocean) sea-surface temperatures over the Gulf of Mexico (Click here to see the above image with Buoy observations included; note that the AWIPS Label for SSTs lists the wrong JPSS instrument data source; this is NPP, not NOAA-20 data). The enhancement shows that temperatures (in orange red) at or above 80^o F are still widespread over the central Gulf of Mexico (extending into the Florida Current to the east of Florida as well); shelf-water temperatures along the American Gulf Coast, however, have cooled into the 60s.

AWIPS-ready VIIRS SST tiles are available via LDM from CIMSS. You can also view individual images of the data at the CIMSS Direct Broadcast site (here), via RealEarth, and at CIMSS’ VIIRS Imagery Viewer.

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GOES-17 (GOES-West) Upper-level Water Vapor (6.2 µm) images (above) include contours of AK-NAM40 model Max Wind isotachs — and showed the flow associated with an anomalously-strong jet stream, with its axis located just off the Arctic coast of Alaska on 03 December 2022.

Plots of Utqiagvik (Barrow, PABR) rawinsonde data from 1200 UTC and 1800 UTC (below) showed that the peak wind speeds at 1200 UTC were 151.7 knots from 300 hPa to 351.6 hPa.

GOES-17 Upper-level Water Vapor images with contours of Moderate or Greater (MOG) Turbulence Probability within the 34-37 kft layer (below) did display areas of 10-50% probability just to the south of the jet axis (12 UTC winds/turbulence comparison) — and there were isolated Pilot Reports of light to moderate turbulence near the MOG contours over the northern Bering Sea. Real-time MOG Turbulence Probability products are available here.

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A timely overpass of Landsat-9 provided a 30-meter resolution “Natural Color” RGB image of the Mauna Loa eruption site at 2048 UTC on 02 December 2022 — as viewed using RealEarth (above). The signature of hot lava (varying shades of red to yellow) flowing from the volcano’s Northeast Rift Zone was very apparent — according to the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory morning Status Update, the lava flow front had advanced to within 2.7 miles south of the Daniel K. Inouye Highway (Saddle Road) that runs east-to-west across the Big Island of Hawai`i. In addition, a hazy volcanic plume could be seen moving westward.

The hot thermal signature of the lava flow was also evident in GOES-17 (GOES-West) Shortwave Infrared (3.9 µm) images (below).

Cursor-sampled values from the GOES-17 Shortwave Infrared image at 2046 UTC (below) showed that maximum 3.9 µm infrared brightness temperatures of the lava flow reached 138.71^oC (the saturation temperature of GOES-17 ABI Band 7 detectors).

The westward-moving volcanic plume had relatively high concentrations of SO2 (lighter shades of cyan to green), as seen in GOES-17 SO2 RGB images (below).

 

Landsat 9 passed over Mauna Loa last Friday as the Hawaiian volcano awakened for the first time in 38 years. The satellites allow us to "see" things our own eyes cannot see. Landsat 9 captures the smoke, shows us the red lava, & reveals the thermal heat signature of the volcano. pic.twitter.com/ESo9XqOY3V

— USGS EROS (@USGS_EROS) December 5, 2022

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1-minute Mesoscale Domain Sector GOES-16 (GOES-East) True Color RGB images from the CSPP GeoSphere site (above) showed blowing dust (shades of tan) along and in the wake of a strong cold front that was moving southward across the High Plains on 02 December 2022.

A Suomi-NPP VIIRS True Color RGB image valid at 1905 UTC (above) provided a higher-resolution view of the blowing dust. About an hour prior to this image time, the peak wind gust at Akron, Colorado was 59 knots (68 mph).  A larger-scale view of 3 consecutive VIIRS True Color RGB images from Suomi-NPP and NOAA-20 is shown below. The data used to create these VIIRS images were downloaded and processed using the SSEC/CIMSS Direct Broadcast ground station.

1-minute GOES-16 Dust RGB images (below) include plots of GOES-16 Derived Motion Winds (DMW) within the 775-900 hPa layer — these DMWs indicated that the airborne dust (brighter shades of pink in the RGB images) was moving southeastward at speeds of 40-52 knots (46-60 mph), in general agreement with the surface wind speeds.  This blowing dust reduced the surface visibility to 1-2 miles at some locations. Peak wind gusts across northeastern Colorado are listed here.

Of note was a second post-frontal pulse of blowing dust, which began in far northeastern Colorado after 21 UTC — this pulse of blowing dust was accompanied by a short-lived drop in dew point concurrent with an increase in wind speed, as observed at Sterling (KSTK, located about 40 miles north-northwest of Akron KAKO), Akron (KAKO) and Burlington (KITR) (below).

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