1-minute Mesoscale Domain Sector GOES-18 (GOES-West) Visible images (above) revealed mesovortices within the eye of Hurricane Lowell as it reached Category 5 intensity over the Central Pacific by 2100 UTC on 02 September 2026. Plots of 1-minute GOES-18 GLM Flash Points highlighted the intermittent lighting activity within the surrounding eyewall.

A larger-scale view of 1-minute GOES-18 Infrared Window images (below) showed that the coldest cloud-top infrared brightness temperatures were in the -75 to -80 C range (brighter white pixels embedded within dark black regions).

Products from the CIMSS Tropical Cyclones site indicated that Lowell was moving through an environment of low deep-layer wind shear (above) and was traversing warm Sea Surface Temperatures (below) — two factors that were favorable for Lowell’s rapid intensification (DMINT | SATCON).

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1-minute Mesoscale Domain Sector GOES-19 (GOES-East) Visible and Infrared Window images (above) showed Tropical Storm Edouard as it made landfall in far southwestern Louisiana at 1920 UTC on 01 September 2026. Plots of 1-minute GOES-19 GLM Flash Points highlighted the intermittent lightning activity associated with Edouard. Pulses of overshooting tops exhibited infrared brightness temperatures in the -75 to -80 C range (brighter white pixels embedded within dark black regions). At inland METAR sites, the peak wind gust was 60 kts (69 mph) at Beaumont/Port Arthur, Texas — with a peak wind gust of 90 mph south of Port Arthur.

Edouard was moving through an environment of low deep-layer wind shear (below), a factor which favored intensification.

Sea Surface Temperatures across the northwestern Gulf of Mexico were also very warm (below) — and water temperatures just off the Gulf Coast (where Edouard intensified to a Tropical Storm shortly before making landfall) were 31 C.

An AMSR Microwave image at 1908 UTC (below) indicated that the eyewall of Edouard was not fully closed at that time.

A MIMIC Total Precipitable Water image at 2200 UTC (below) showed that significant moisture had already moved inland across southeast Texas as Edouard was making landfall.

1-minute GOES-19 Infrared Window images that included overlays of Flood Watch/Warning/Advisory polygons (below) displayed several Flash Flood Warnings (red polygons) and even a Flash Flood Emergency (bold red polygon). Up to 17 inches of rainfall occurred across southeast Texas during the 24-hour period ending at 12 UTC on 02 September, and over 24 inches during the 48 hours ending at 12 UTC on 03 September.

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1-minute Mesoscale Domain Sector GOES-19 (GOES-East) images (above) showed signatures of the SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket booster following the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope launch from Kennedy Space Center at 1126 UTC on 30 August 2026.

1 minute after launch, at 1127 UTC, a multi-panel display of imagery from all 16 ABI spectral bands on GOES-19 (below) revealed either a reflective signature (in Visible band 02) or a thermal signature (in Near-Infrared bands 03-06, and Infrared bands 07-16) as the Falcon Heavy rocket was ascending just off the Florida coast.

1 minute later, at 1128 UTC, a thermal signature of the rocket booster was apparent in Near-Infrared bands 04-06 and Infrared bands 07-16 (below). In the 3 Water Vapor spectral bands (08/09/10), a short trail of moisture-laden rocket exhaust was seen immediately behind the leading hot thermal signature of the booster engines.

A common practice with Falcon Heavy rockets is to have the 2 side core boosters perform a series of “boostback burns” to slow their descent in order to make a landing on a floating water platform (or in this case, back to Kennedy Space Center), to enable their recycling for future flights. A signature of dual side core boostback burns appeared at 1133 UTC in imagery from several of the Near-Infrared and Infrared spectral bands (below).

Many of the aforementioned signatures were seen in a larger-scale view of 1-minute GOES-19 Rocket Plume RGB images, created using Geo2Grid (below), including: (1) the hot thermal signature at launch appeared as a cluster of brighter red pixels at 1126 UTC; (2) at 1129 UTC a long trail of the rocket exhaust moisture plume (brighter shades of yellow-green) was very apparent, with the first of 3 side core boostback burn signatures appearing in the middle of the plume, and the center core thermal signature appearing at the leading edge of the plume; (3) the brighter yellow-green final side core boostback burn signature appeared at 1132 UTC, After the Falcon Heavy departed from the satellite scene, note how the western portion of the rocket’s trailing moisture plume (pale shades of yellow) was advected slowly northward, while the eastern portion of the moisture plume (which was at a higher altitude) was advected more rapidly southward — an effect of wind shear with height.

A stepped sequence of imagery from all 16 ABI spectral bands is shown below.

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1-minute Mesoscale Domain Sector GOES-19 (GOES-East) True Color RGB images from the CSPP GeoSphere site (above) provided a view of the rocket condensation cloud resulting from the launch of EUMETSAT MTG-I2 (Meteosat Third Generation Imager-2) from Europe’s Spaceport (the Guiana Space Centre) near Kourou, French Guiana at 2011 UTC on 27 August 2026. The rocket condensation cloud’s deformation in time was due to changes in wind direction and/or wind speed with height.

An animation of 1-minute GOES-19 Rocket Plume RGB images created using Geo2Grid (below) showed the high-altitude signature of the Ariane 6 rocket’s exhaust trail of hot water vapor (brighter shades of yellow).

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