MIMIC Total Precipitable Water esimates over the Indian Ocean for the 24 hours ending at 2000 UTC on 1 February 2022, above, show the strong cyclonic circulation associated with Cyclone Basirai. Its forecast motion is westward towards Madagascar, as shown in the toggle below that also includes sea-surface temperatures and Window Channel (showing a well-structured storm; all images are from the SSEC/CIMSS Tropical Website). A wind shear analysis (also from the SSEC Tropical Website and valid at 1800 UTC on 1 February) for the Indian Ocean shows low shear values over the storm, but relatively high shear between the storm and the island of Madagascar.

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Batsirai’s path moves it close to Mozambique/Malawi, two countries that are still being flooded as a result of rains from Tropical Storm Ana a week ago. A VIIRS flood analysis (from this website), below, diagnoses active flooding occurring along the Shire River (south of Lake Malawi) and along the Zambezi River on 31 January 2022.

For more information on Batsirai, consult the RSMC at La Réunion (click ici) or the SSEC Tropical Website.

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GOES-16 (GOES-East) Near-Infrared “Snow/Ice” (1.61 µm), Near-Infrared “Cloud Particle Size” (2.24 µm) and Shortwave Infrared (3.9 µm) images (above) displayed the thermal signature of a fire at the Weaver Fertilizer Plant in Winston-Salem, North Carolina (airport identifier KINT) that began around 2346 UTC or 6:46 pm EST (about an hour after sunset) on 31 January 2022. The highest 3.9 µm infrared brightness temperature was 300.64 K at 0011UTC, 25 minutes after the fire was first detected by GOES-16.

Note that a faint thermal signature of the fire (pixels exhibiting dim shades of white) was also seen in the Near-Infrared (1.61 µm Band 5 and 2.24 µm Band 6) images — this is because those two ABI spectral bands are located close to the peak emitted radiance of very hot features such as large fires (below).

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GOES-16 (GOES-East) “Red” Visible (0.64 µm) images (above) showed the widespread coverage of ice across Lake Erie on 31 January 2022. Surface winds were generally light across the region, minimizing wind stress on the pack ice. A careful inspection of the imagery revealed some straight pathways cut through the ice by US Coast Guard icebreakers.

An Aqua MODIS True Color RGB image from the MODIS Today site (below) provided a higher-resolution view of the linear icebreaker paths in the western portion of the lake (where the ice was generally thicker).

The entire icebreaker channel was apparently completed sometime before sunrise on 31 January — the western portion was evident in a Sentinel-1A Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) Normalized Radar Cross Section (NRCS) image (source) at 2324 UTC on 30 January, and its eastward continuation was seen in a RCM-1 SAR NRCS image at 1136 UTC image on 31 January (below).

A toggle between GOES-16 Visible images at 1801 UTC on 29 January and 31 January (below) showed the marked increase in ice coverage during that 48-hour period.

In fact, a GLERL plot of current Lake Erie ice coverage compared to the historical average (below) showed that the percentage of ice cover had recently become well above average for the date.

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GOES-16 (GOES-East) Mid-level Water Vapor (6.9 µm) images (above) showed the widespread precipitation (WPC Storm Summary) produced by a midlatitude cyclone that rapidly intensified off the Northeast US coast on 29 January 2022.

GOES-16 Water Vapor images with hourly plots of wind barbs and gusts (below) showed that the highest wind gusts occurred near the New England coast.

GOES-16 Air Mass RGB images (below) included contours of RAP40 model PV1.5 pressure — an indicator of the height of the “dynamic tropopause” — which showed that the dynamic tropopause had briefly descended to the 900 hPa pressure level at 20 UTC.

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