GOES-7 Infrared (11.35 um) images (above) showed Hurricane Andrew making landfall along the southeast coast of Florida — as a Category 5 storm — around 0831 UTC  on 24 August 1992. At that time, the coldest cloud-top infrared brightness temperatures of the eyewall region were around -75ºC. These images were created using archived data from SSEC Satellite Data Services.

More information on Andrew can be found in this video produced by NWS Miami for the 25th anniversary of the storm.

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Access to SSEC’s Data Center allows for some serious “data crunching” with the full record of GOES-17 ABI data. In Figure 1 below, GOES-17 Band 13 Full Disk brightness temperatures have been averaged for each month in 2021. These fields of averaged brightness temperature are useful for assisting forecasters in knowing what can be expected from satellite retrievals on monthly timescales, especially in remote Pacific regions where forecasters are heavily reliant on satellite data.

2021 was a typical La Nina year, which is associated with dry weather in the Southwest United States. A strong surface heat signal can be seen in that region from April – September.

May – October experiences cooler temperatures in the East Pacific near Mexico and Central America. This may be associated with the 2021 Pacific Hurricane season.

Figure 2 is the same animation for tropical latitudes only. In all months, the ITCZ band is visible. It can be recognized as a band of cooler brightness temperatures (green-teal color) that sits slightly north of the equator. If you look closely, the ITCZ seems to undergo a slight northward migration as the year progresses. This northward shift is more noticeable in the transitions from April to May and from September to October.

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1-minute Mesoscale Domain Sector GOES-16 (GOES-East) Visible/Infrared Sandwich RGB images from 1300-1800 UTC (above) included plots of 1-hour surface precipitation amounts — and showed clusters of thunderstorms moving across North Texas and the greater Dallas/Fort Worth area early in the day on 22 August 2022. These storms were focused along a quasi-stationary surface front that was draped across the region; heavy rainfall during this 5-hour period caused additional flash flooding in locations that had already received substantial precipitation within the previous 24 hours.

A GOES-16 Visible/Infrared Sandwich RGB image at 1410 UTC (below) displayed cursor readouts of the 3 RGB components along with the available Level 2 Derived Products — cloud-top infrared brightness temperatures were colder than -80ºC, Cloud-Top Heights were greater than 54,000 feet and Rainfall Rates were nearly 3.7 inches per hour just south of Terrell, Texas. The Dallas/Fort Worth airport received a record 3.01 inches of rain in 1 hour (tweet).

Hourly MIMIC Total Precipitable Water images viewed using RealEarth (below) depicted TPW values in the 60-70 mm (2.4-2.8 inches) range, with a peak value of 78 mm (3.1 inches). The 22 August / 00 UTC rawinsonde report from Fort Worth had a TPW value of 2.34 inches, which was a record maximum value for that date/time.

Additional satellite imagery and information about this event can be found on the Satellite Liaison Blog. 

At 1pm the 24 hour rain totals range from 15.16" in east Dallas (White Rock Creek @ Scyene) to just 0.82" at McKinney airport just 25 miles away. #dfwwx #txwx

— NWS Fort Worth (@NWSFortWorth) August 22, 2022

We've broken several records at DFW Airport following the significant rain event over the past 24 hours. August 21st-22nd, 2022, is now the second wettest 24-hour period, coming in at 9.19"! That's only 0.38" shy of the #1 record. Daily records were also broken for 8/21 and 8/22. pic.twitter.com/8Ze02IxNGt

— NWS Fort Worth (@NWSFortWorth) August 22, 2022

Dallas & Fort Worth area rain totals continue piling up. pic.twitter.com/6f1YISdie5

— Matt Lanza ?? (@mattlanza) August 22, 2022

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GOES-16 (GOES-East) Fire Tempera ture RGB images (above) showed the rapid north-northwestward spread of a wind-driven grassland fire across Sioux County in far southern North Dakota during the early afternoon hours on 21 August 2022. South-southeasterly winds were gusting to 17-18 knots (19-21 mph) at surrounding METAR sites during that time period.

The GOES-16 Fire Temperature RGB image at 1921 UTC (below) includes cursor readouts of the individual RGB components, along with the corresponding Fire Detection and Characterization Algorithm (FDCA) products. This was the time of the peak 3.9 µm infrared brightness temperature of 86.95ºC — the FDCA Fire Temperature value was 758.57 K, while the Fire Power was 912.46 MW.

In Suomi-NPP VIIRS True Color and False Color RGB images valid at 1938 UTC viewed using RealEarth (below), the elongated dark vegetation burn scar was evident, along with a smoke plume fanning out to the north and a lone pyrocumulus cloud just northeast of the active fire (brighter shades of pink in the False Color image).

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