A NOAA-20 overpass across the Great Lakes on 2 February showed primarily clear skies over Lake Erie and western Lake Ontario, allowing for computation of ACSPO (Advanced Clear-Sky Processor for Ocean) Sea-Surface Temperatures. (Note that the colorbar has been rescaled from its default so that only values between 32 and 41^o F (i.e., 0 and 5^o C) are shown). The warmest lake surface temperatures over Lake Erie are around 37.5^oF; those over Lake Ontario are around 40.8^oF. The image below shows False Color imagery rather than True Color, allowing better identification of snow-covered surfaces over land, and better identification of clouds holding liquid cloud droplets.

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VIIRS True- and False-Color imagery and ACSPO SSTs were created using CSPP Software and data from the Direct Broadcast antenna at CIMSS. They are available as AWIPS tiles via LDM, and are also viewable at this website, in RealEarth, and at the VIIRS viewer.

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The Lightning Imaging Sensor (LIS) that flies on the International Space Station (ISS) observed about 20 individual flashes in about a minute to the east of Japan on 1 February 2023, as shown in the animation above. Himawari-9 Band 13 clean window infrared (10.41 µm) imagery, below, bracketing the lightning observation times above shows a developing storm system moving out over the Pacific — the comma head of the system is over southern Hokkaido Island. Convective development can be inferred between 35^o and 40^o N off the coast of Honshu.

Did this system intensify, as one might expect given the presence of lightning? It did. The imagery below, from this site, shows the storm forecast to strengthen from 999 hPa at 0600 UTC to 989 hPa at 1800 UTC on 1 February. LIS data, though infrequent, can give useful information about convection.

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JMA Himawari-9 False Color RGB images from the NOAA/CIMSS Volcanic Cloud Monitoring site (above) showed plumes of SO2 (brighter shades of cyan) drifting northward, westward and southeastward from the East Epi submarine volcano, following its eruption on 01 February 2023 (local time).  The differences in SO2 transport were due to directional wind shear with height. No signatures of significant concentrations of volcanic ash were seen in other types of multispectral satellite imagery.

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Using a combined LEO/GEO approach, ABI and VIIRS retrievals are used to estimate flooding from a satellite perspective. Individual flood products from VIIRS and ABI (or AHI, depending on location) are blended to create the NOAA LEO/GEO Flood Mapping Product.

An example is shown below over the Sacramento, California region. Recent rains in California caused flooding in much of the state, including regions near the state’s capital, Sacramento, particularly along the Sacramento River. RealEarth provides a 14-day archive of the NOAA LEO/GEO Flood Mapping Product (listed as River Flood: Joint ABI/VIIRS), which is available on a daily basis. The product is an estimate of surface flooded water fractions, and can be obstructed by cloud cover as seen in the frame from 1-29-2023. While the area looks heavily flooded, it is important to note that many of these regions are actually agricultural rice farms that intentionally flood surface areas.

A flood gauge monitored by the USGS shows a decline in water levels over the past week in Sutter County, CA, just north of Sacramento and along the Sacramento River.

You can generate the RealEarth LEO/GEO Flood Product animation on your own or investigate other flood sites by visiting the RealEarth webpage.

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