1-minute Mesoscale Domain Sector GOES-16 (GOES-East) “Red” Visible (0.64 µm) images (above) include time-matched SPC Storm Reports — and showed the development severe thunderstorms across parts of Iowa, Wisconsin and Upper Michigan during the afternoon and early evening hours on 15 June 2022. Boundary layer feeder band clouds could be seen flowing north-northeastward into some of the growing thunderstorms — which produced a few tornadoes and damaging straight-line winds as strong as 80 mph in Wisconsin, and hail as large as 2.75 inches in diameter in Iowa. This convection developed along and ahead of an eastward-moving cold front (surface analyses).

In the corresponding 1-minute GOES-16 “Clean” Infrared Window (10.35 µm) images (below), pulsing overshooting tops exhibited cold infrared brightness temperatures in the -75 to -79ºC range (brighter white pixels embedded within areas of black).

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ProbSevere is a weather product that uses GOES-16 data to help predict the probability of any severe weather (hail, wind, or tornados) happening in the next 60 minutes. ProbSevere LightningCast predicts the probability that a GLM Lightning observation will occur in the next 60 minutes. Below are examples of these products over the Western Wisconsin area as a convective system rolls through La Crosse, Wisconsin.

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1-minute Mesoscale Domain Sector GOES-17 (GOES-West) “Red” Visible (0.64 µm), Shortwave Infrared (3.9 µm), “Clean” Infrared Window (10.35 µm) and Cloud Top Temperature derived product images (above) showed that the Calf Canyon Fire/Hermits Peak Fire in northeastern New Mexico produced a pair of pyrocumulonimbus (pyroCb) clouds on 14 June 2022. Extreme fire behavior was aided by surface wind gusts as high as 60 mph and very dry air within the boundary layer. Ths large fire burned very hot, with 3.9 µm Shortwave Infrared brightness temperatures reaching 138.71ºC — the saturation temperature of ABI Band 7 detectors — for extended periods of time. Coldest 10.35 µm cloud-top brightness temperatures exhibited by the pyroCb cloud were around -46ºC (lighter blue enhancement), with the Cloud Top Temperature product showing values as cold as -61ºC (gren pixels). This was the 4th day of pyroCb production by this fire — following previous events on 14 May, 10 May and 01 May.

In a toggle between Suomi-NPP VIIRS True Color RGB and False Color RGB images valid at 2051 UTC (below), the True Color image highlighted the smoke plume while the False Color image showed the active fires (brighter shades of pink) along with the size of the burn scar (shades of brown).

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One the forecast offices selected on 14 June 2022 in the Hazardous Weather Testbed was Tallahassee (WFO TAE). The animation above shows the evolution of a seabreeze front that moves slowly northward (as a mesoscale complex, part of a system that produced widespread wind damage earlier in the day (storm reports from 13 June and 14 June), moves southward). Convection develops along the sea breeze front. The animation of Convective Available Potential Energy (CAPE), below, from the Polar Hyperspectral Modeling System, shows a local maximum of CAPE along the coast initially; it then propagates inland with time. The 1- and 2-h forecasts predict with accuracy where the CAPE associated with the sea breeze front will be. That’s perhaps easier to view in the animation at the bottom that has the model CAPE field semi-transparent on top of the visible (0.64 µm) imagery.

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Additional Hazardous Weather Testbed blog posts can be found here. The third and final week of HWT concludes on Friday the 17th.

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