2.5-minute rapid scan JMA Himawari-8 Visible (0.64 µm) images (above) showed rapidly-intensifying Typhoon Hinnamnor as it once again reached Category 5 intensity (ADT | AiDT | SATCON) about 3 hours after local sunrise on 31 August 2022. Mesovortices rotating within the eye were evident though breaks in patchy high clouds overhead.

2.5-minute Himawari-8 Infrared (10.4 µm) images (below) revealed convection within the eyewall region which exhibited cloud-top infrared brightness temperatures of -80°C and colder (violet pixels).

Several hours before sunrise, a toggle between NOAA-20 VIIRS Day/Night Band (0.7 µm) and Infrared Window (11.45 µm) images valid at 1749 UTC, viewed using RealEarth (below) revealed concentric mesospheric airglow waves in the DNB image, propagating away from Hinnamnor (primarily to the north of the storm).

The mesospheric airglow waves were less evident in an earlier comparison of Suomi-NPP VIIRS Day/Night Band and Infrared Window images, valid at 1700 UTC (below) — however, at that time the DNB displayed bright streaks near the eye, indicative of clouds illuminated intense lightning activity.

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CSPP Quicklooks (click to view documentation) is a software package (available here) developed at CIMSS to (as the name might suggest!) create images from Polar-orbiting data, as shown in this blog post that shows imagery created from Direct Broadcast data (for example. using NUCAPS EDRs (Environmental Data Records) files as available at the CIMSS Direct Broadcast site). NUCAPS EDR files can also be downloaded from the NOAA CLASS site — by choosing ‘JPSS Sounder Products’ in the ‘Please select a product to search’ drop-down menu, and then choosing ‘NUCAPS Environmental Data Records’ — that is, EDRs.

Follow the instructions in this blog post to download and set up the Quicklooks software (free registration at the CSPP website may be required). Imagery at the previous blog post used default domains and colorbars. In the example above, multiple images are captured over a specified domain, and are scaled identically using keywords as shown in the calls below:

file18=$CSPP_SOUNDER_QL_HOME/data4/NUCAPS-EDR_v2r0_npp_s2018101917*.nc
sh ./ql_level2_image.sh "$file18" NUCAPS --dset temp --pressure 300 --plotMin 223.0 --plotMax 258.0 --lat_0 15.0 --lon_0 -75.0

Note that ‘file18’ identifies all files within a directory that contain an EDR from around 1700 UTC on 19 October 2018. The wildcard includes >20 different granules that are composited into an image for that time, as shown below. The –plotMin and –plotMax keywords define the color scaling used, and the data are centered at 15^o N, 75^o W on a Lambert Conformal grid. Similarly, an image that uses all data from 20181919* can be created, as shown below.

How are both images combined so that data from the afternoon/evening passes are in one image (as shown in the animation above?) This is done by making parts of the images above transparent, and by overlaying the transparent image over the bottom image (I did this using ImageMagick). Both white (“#ffffff”) and grey (“#d9d9d9”) values were made transparent, and a combined image (here) is created. This is done for all morning images, and afternoon/evening images, and the animation is then created.

Note that if this is done when both Suomi-NPP and NOAA-20 passes are available, the gaps apparent in the imagey above will not be present. October 2018 was before NOAA-20 NUCAPS were operational however.

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2.5-minute rapid scan JMA Himawari-8 Visible (0.64 µm) images (above) showed rapidly-intensifying Category 4 Typhoon Hinnamnor as it moved across the West Pacific Ocean (southeast of Japan) on 29 August 2022. Mesovortices within the eye were faintly evident though breaks in patchy high clouds overhead.

2.5-minute Himawari-8 Infrared (10.4 µm) images (below) revealed a few pulses  of convection which exhibited cloud-top infrared brightness temperatures of -80°C and colder (violet pixels).

A DMSP-17 SSMIS Microwave (85 GHz) image at 2142 UTC from the CIMSS Tropical Cycones site (below) also depicted the well-defined eye and eyewall structure.

===== 30 August Update =====

On the following day, Himawari-8 Infrared (10.4 µm) images (above) showed the well-defined eye and surrounding eyewall as Hinnamnor reached Category 5 intensity at 1200 UTC. An eyewalll replacement cycle began around 2100 UTC, leading to a slight decline in intensity (to Category 4) and a deteriorating eye structure.

Post-sunrise Himawari-8 Visible (0.64 µm) images (below) better showed how close the eye passed to the Japanese islands of Kitadait?jima (RORK, where winds gusted to 98 knots) and Minamidait?jima (ROMD, where winds gusted to 69 knots).

In a toggle between nighttime Suomi-NPP VIIRS Infrared Window (11.45 µm) and Day/Night Band (0.7 µm) images valid at 1717 UTC, viewed using RealEarth (below), the Day/Night Band image displayed a bright lightning streak just southwest of the eye — showing clouds within the eyewall being illuminated by intense lightning activity; cloud-top gravity waves were evident southeast of the eye in the Infrared image.

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NASA was supposed to launch its Artemis rocket to the moon this morning, at 8:33 AM EDT (12:33 UTC) from Cape Canaveral, FL. However, an engine problem caused NASA to scrub the launch for today. Even if all technical aspects of the launch were “go”, developing convection near Cape Canaveral might have posed a problem for the rocket launch.

ProbSevere LightningCast, an AI model developed by CIMSS and NOAA, uses GOES-R ABI images to predict lightning in the next 60 minutes. It was predicting elevated probabilities of lightning near Kennedy Space Center prior to the start of the launch window, reaching nearly 60% by 12:31 UTC. Lightning was eventually observed by the Geostationary Lightning Mapper by 13:11 UTC.

Tools like LightningCast can help convert the rich information from GOES-R ABI into actionable information, helping decision-makers protect life and property. In this case, LightingCast could hypothetically be used to help protect billions of dollars of equipment, as well as the lives of NASA personnel preparing the launch pad. While this is a hypothetical case, experimental LightningCast output has been used routinely by the National Weather Service to provide guidance on lighting initiation and to inform their impacts-based decision support to key events and partners.

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