Both Hurricanes Charley (2004) and Ian (2022) were extremely strong storms to strike the west coast of Florida. Both Charley and Ian were upper Category 4 storms, as a measure of their wind speeds. Of course wind speed is only one of the critical impacts of a hurricane. For more information on Hurricane Ian, see other UW CIMSS Satellite Blog posts such as when the hurricane made a landfall in Florida on September 28th and again in South Carolina on the 30th (by Scott Bachmeier, UW/CIMSS), the CIMSS Tropical Cyclones page, or a blog post by Bill Line, NOAA / NEDSIS.

GOES-12 versus GOES-16 (ABI)

The quality of the monitoring of storms between GOES-12 and GOES-16 were orders of magnitude improved. For example, GOES-12 provided imagery with intervals of between 7 and 30 minutes, while the Advanced Baseline Imager (ABI) provided images every 30 seconds via the meso-scale sector. The spatial resolutions of the longwave infrared window improved from approximately 4 to 2 km, while the visible band improved from 1 to 0.5 km. In addition, there were calibration and navigation improvements.

Longwave Infrared band

This longwave infrared window (heat of the emitting surface) loop has the imagery remapped to the same projection. The Ian ABI loop runs from 13:00:28 to 17:59:55 UTC on September 29, 2022, while the GOES-12 Imager Charley loop covers from 15:15 to 19:55 UTC on August 13, 2004. Note the improved temporal and spatial resolutions.

IR window loop as an animated gif and mp4. There are also version with a 30-sec duration (mp4). Both satellite images have been remapped to the same projection.

Drag the center line left or right to compare the two storms. Note the very different eye sizes. A toggle loop.

Visible band

This visible (reflected light) loop has the imagery remapped to the same projection. The Ian ABI loop runs from 13:00:28 to 17:59:55 UTC on September 29, 2022, while the GOES-12 Imager Charley loop covers from 15:15 to 19:55 UTC on August 13, 2004. Note the improved temporal and spatial resolutions.

Visible loop as an animated gif and mp4. There are also version with a 30-sec duration (mp4). Note that the landfall occurred about 3 hours later in the day for Hurricane Charley, compared to Ian. Both satellite images have been remapped to the same projection.

Drag the center line left or right to compare the two storms. Note the very different eye sizes. A toggle loop.

Several Social Media Posts Comparing Ian to Charley

There were several social media posts comparing these two storms, both the satellite and radar perspectives.

Reposted, because it's cooler with the same projection. Ian in 2022, Charley in 2004. pic.twitter.com/3GDE6ugr8S

— Satellite Training (@WxSatChat) September 28, 2022

As a pair, #Hurricanes #IAN (2022) & CHARLEY (2004) provide a spectacular illustration of how #stormsurge is not just a function of intensity, but also size & forward speed. pic.twitter.com/X9exKnnV7m

— Josh Morgerman (@iCyclone) October 6, 2022

Comparing Hurricane #Ian to #Charley – in this week's #WxYz: https://t.co/H1IE7BVGEs @jmnese pic.twitter.com/4LqL2McNBa

— Weather World (@WeatherWorldPSU) October 6, 2022

When it comes to storm surge, size does matter.

Hurricanes #Charley '04 and #Ian made landfall at the same place at the same intensity.

On the left, Charley, a much more compact storm, with its 3.38 foot surge at the Ft. Myers station.

Ian was much bigger – a 7.22 foot surge. pic.twitter.com/7OOz3e6dhT

— MyRadar Weather (@MyRadarWX) October 5, 2022

still mindblown by this radar imagery of Hurricane Charley's eyewall sitting in Hurricane Ian's eye ? pic.twitter.com/EF58tuCojr

— Weather Geeks (@WeatherGeeks) October 8, 2022

Here's the radar loops of both Charley '04 & #Ian '22. Both made landfall at the exact same spot just 18 years, 1 month, 16 days apart. They made landfall at the same windspeed intensity but Ian was stronger by 1mb. #FLwx #tropicswx #HurricaneIan pic.twitter.com/kETiInartp

— Vortix (@VortixWx) September 29, 2022

Ian Collage

Several views of Hurricane Ian just before making landfall. This includes visible / near-infrared bands (first row), infrared bands (second row) and RGB composites (last 3 rows). These images were made with UW/SSEC geo2grid python software with a number of other UNIX scripts. A larger version.

H/T

Thanks to Scott Lindstrom, SSEC for the idea for these comparison loops, and Jim Nelson, CIMSS for the loops. The McIDAS-X software was used with NOAA‘s GOES data via the UW/SSEC Data Services. More on GOES-R series ABI imagery and resources.

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GOES-18 (GOES-West) Upper-level Water Vapor (6.2 µm) images (above) displayed a quasi-stationary train of gravity waves north and northwest of Hawai`i on 20 October 2022. There were no pilot reports of turbulence in the vicinity of these waves — likely due to the lack of rapid wave propagation, and the non-interfering nature of their orientation.

These waves developed in a region of diffluent upper-tropospheric flow, in the exit region of a jet streak along the western edge of an anomalously-deep retrograding upper-level trough north of the islands — as shown in a 2-hour sequence of GOES-18 Water Vapor images with plots of GFS model 300 hPa winds valid at 12 UTC (below).

The 300 hPa winds were at a pressure level closely corresponding to that of the peak GOES-West ABI Band 08 (6.2 µm) weighting function at that location — derived using GFS model fields (below).

Thanks to Matt Sitkowski (The Weather Channel) for bringing these gravity wave features to our attention!

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GOES-16 (GOES-East) Day Cloud Phase Distinction RGB images (above) showed convection which developed just off the Lower Michigan coast in southeastern Lake Michigan — where warmer water temperatures existed — on 17 October 2022. As this convection moved inland across southwestern Lower Michigan and northern Indiana it produced a swath of rainfall and snowfall.

The GOES-16 Day Cloud Phase Distinction RGB image at 1831 UTC (below) includes cursor readouts of associated Cloud Top Phase and Cloud Top Height derived products at a point near the center of the offshore convection. Qualitative interpretation of RGB color hues can be somewhat difficult or misleading at times — this method of Level 2 derived product display ensures a more accurate analysis of RGB image features. For example, the cloud top at the cursor location shown below exhibited a 10.3 µm infrared brightness temperature of -43.05ºC at a height of 26,766 feet, ensuring Ice as the cloud top phase.

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The intensity of Tropical Storm Karl had recently peaked late in the day on 12 October — however, 1-minute Mesoscale Domain Sector GOES-16 (GOES-East) “Clean” Infrared Window (10.3 µm) images on 13 October 2022 (above) showed that a large, long-lived convective burst developed southeast of Karl’s center around 11 UTC. Within this larger-scale convective burst, periodic small-scale “hot towers” exhibited cloud-top infrared brightness temperatures of -90ºC and colder (yellow pixels embedded within areas of darker purple enhancement).

The center of Karl passed very close to Buoy 42055 around 12 UTC — as shown in a plot of wind speed and air pressure (below).

1-minute GOES-16 “Red” Visible (0.64 µm) images after sunrise (above) showed the detailed cloud-top shadowing and texture associated with Karl’s convective features. Later in the day, a portion of the tropical cyclone’s low-level circulation became partially exposed, due to northwesterly wind shear across that region.

GOES-16 Infrared Window (11.2 µm) images (below) include contours of deep-layer wind shear valid at 2200 UTC from the CIMSS Tropical Cyclones site — which displayed the shear that was affecting Karl and helping to partially expose its low-level circulation.

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