The image below shows GOES-16 Fire Power, a Fire Detection/Characterization Algorithm (FDCA) output field (along with Fire Temperature and Fire Area), on a day when strong southerly winds helped support multiple fires over Texas (as shown in this animation, from this blog post). If you do not have access to AWIPS, as below (or in the linked-to animation), are there other ways to access and display FDCA output? This blog post shows how to do that with McIDAS-V.

Where can you get the FDCA data to display? The NOAA CLASS data respository is one place. The toggle below outlines the products to choose in the drop-down menu (“GOES-R Series ABI Products (GRABIPRD) partially restricted L1b and L2+ Data Products”) near the top of the CLASS home page (then click on the >>GO), and then shows how to select the data wanted. In the example below, I’ve chosen the ABI L2+ GOES-16 CONUS files of Fire/Hot Spot Characterization on 20 March 2022 between 21:00 and 21:04. After making those selections, click on ‘Search’ and then order. When the files are queued up for retrieval, you’ll receive an email with instructions.

You can also access GOES-R data through this website below hosted at the University of Utah. (Kudos to Brian Blaylock, its developer!) Note in the animation below how you choose the satellite, the product and the time, and then receive a list of downloadable files.

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You can start up McIDAS-V to view the data once you have downloaded to your machine the data file:

OR_ABI-L2-FDCC-M6_G16_s20220792101168_e20220792103541_c20220792104155.nc

FDCC in the filename signifies Fire Detection Characterization in the CONUS domain, created with Mode 6 scanning (M6) and GOES-16 data (G16). The data starts at 21:01:16.8 on 20 March (Julian Day 79) in 2022, i.e., 20220792101168 and ends at 21:03:54.1 on the same day. It was created at 21:04:15.5. Once you start McIDAS-V, you must input the data, via the Data Sources tab within the Data Explorer. The satellite data we’re using are gridded data, and they’re local. Select the file needed for display and click ‘Add Source’. When you do that, you’ll see a different window (‘Field Selector’) brought to the front.

Note in this example that 5 different fields are present in the file: Fire + Hot Spot Characterization Fire Area, Fire Temperatures, Fire Mask, Fire Radiative Power and Data Quality Flags. In this example, I’ve selected ‘Data Quality Flags’ — to be presented as ‘Value Plots’; those are shown below in a region zoomed in over Texas and annotated.

Rather than Data Quality Flags, one can show ‘Fire Mask’ — these data values are available in AWIPS files, but aren’t generally shown. So, I recreated the ‘Value Plots’ but selected ‘Fire Mask’ rather than ‘data quality Flags’; Next, I created a ‘Color-Shaded Plan View’ (the Data Explorer for that is shown here, created with ‘Match Display Region’ chosen). The animation below steps through the plotted values, the color-shaded plan view with default enhancement, and the color-shaded plan view with a McIDAS Enhancement Table appropriate to the Fire Mask (clouds, for example, are grey, and fires stand out against the background). (This pdf describes what the file mask values mean).

This toggle compares Fire Mask, and Fire Power. A zoom in on Fire Power to north Texas, below, shows the same data as the AWIPS screen grab at the top of this blog post. They are nearly identical.

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Use McIDAS-V to display Level 2 products if it is difficult to find them online.

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As noted here, an updated version of geo2grid is being prepared at CIMSS. As part of that upgrade, support for some level 2 products will be included. For example, the image above — of cloud-top height — was created using the following set of geo2grid (a beta version that this blogger is testing) calls.

./geo2grid.sh -r abi_l2_nc -w geotiff -p HT -g L2Fields --grid-configs $GEO2GRID_HOME/L2Fields.yaml --method nearest --radius-of-influence 40000 -f /arcdata/goes_restricted/grb/goes16/2022/2022_03_21_080/abi/L2/ACHAC/*s20220801501*.nc
../add_coastlines.sh --add-coastlines --coastlines-resolution h --coastlines-level=5 --coastlines-outline='blue' --add-grid --grid-text-size 0 --grid-D 5.0 5.0 --grid-d 5.0 5.0 --add-colorbar --colorbar-align right --colorbar-text-size 8 --colorbar-vertical --colorbar-no-ticks --add-borders GOES-16_ABI_HT_20220321_150116_L2Fields.tif
convert GOES-16_ABI_HT_20220321_150116_L2Fields.png -gravity Southwest -fill black -pointsize 16 -annotate +12+36 "GOES-16 Cloud Top Height 1501 UTC 21 March 2022" GOES-16_ABI_HT_20220321_150116_L2Fields1.png
convert GOES-16_ABI_HT_20220321_150116_L2Fields1.png ~scottl/smalllogo.png -gravity northwest -geometry +12+8 -composite GOES-16_ABI_HT_20220321_150116_L2Fields2.png

How does the image above compare to Level 2 product fields that can be found elsewhere? This website contains a link to a RealEarth instance that includes mappings of Full-Disk Cloud Mask, Cloud Top Pressure, Cloud top Phase, and Cloud Optical Depth. A portion of the Full-Disk Cloud Top Pressure is shown below (from 1500 UTC). Similar features are apparent in fields above and below.

Level 2 Products associated with Cloud-top properties are also available at the CIRA slider, including Cloud-top Height, shown below from 1501 UTC. Other GOES-R Level 2 products available there include Cloud Optical Depth, Cloud Mask, Cloud Phase and Cloud Effective Particle Size.

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By animating daily NOAA GOES-17 ABI Full Disk true color imagery, how the Earth is illuminated over time can be seen. For example, the minimum in incoming solar radiation in the Northern Hemisphere associated with the Winter Solstice. For details, see “What is a Solstice?” by SciJinks. Or this NOAA https://www.noaa.gov/education/news/share-your-solstice-sunset-with-noaa-education post.

14 UTC loops from the fall Equinox of 2021 to the Spring Equinox of 2022. Also as an animated gif. These posted GOES ABI Full Disk imagery are only showing a small number of the pixels, for a fuller resolution image at one time (20-March-2022).

The 16 bands of ABI from GOES-West and GOES-East from UW/CIMSS.

Interactive web page

An interactive web page with almost a years worth of GOES ABI Full Disk visible images at 11 UTC. The beginning date is the (northern hemisphere) summer solstice in 2021 and the end date is the winter solstice in 2021. A user can play the animation, as well as annotate the images. For example, draw lines along the terminator for different times of the year. One example might be to compare a solstice to an equinox. Can you estimate the day of the summery equinox? H/T Tom Whittaker, SSEC, for the webapp. Note that the app allows one to save an mp4 animation.

H/T

These images were made using NOAA data with geo2grid software, from UW-Madison, SSEC.

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The southeastern 2/3 of Iowa received precipitation during the 24 to 48 hours preceding 12 UTC on 19 March 2022 — and GOES-16 (GOES-East) Day Snow-Fog RGB images (above) showed (1) a signature of the resultant moist soil (darker shades of green) across central and southeastern Iowa, along with (2) isolated patches of fresh snow cover (darker shades of red) in southeastern Nebraska, southwestern Iowa, northeastern Iowa and southwestern Wisconsin. The area of deeper (and thus slower-melting) snow cover over southwestern Iowa was enhanced by a period of thundersnow, where 3.0 inches fell at Audubon (KADU) and 2.1 inches fell at Atlantic (KAIO). There was a sharp boundary separating this recently-moistened soil from the very dry soil across northwestern Iowa — an area which had received less than 50% of normal precipitation during the previous 90 days, and was experiencing abnormally dry to severe drought conditions.

The corresponding hourly Land Surface Temperature (LST) derived product displayed a similarly sharp contrast between the dry and moist soil — with the dry soils exhibiting late-morning to mid-afternoon LST values that were 15-25ºF warmer than adjacent moist soils (since the energy of incoming solar radiation was acting to evaporate water from the moist soil, rather than warm it). For example, in the Land Surface Temperature product at 1901 UTC (below) the LST along the 40-mile Baseline segment A-A’ varied from 88ºF in dry soil (at Point A) to 63ºF in moist soil (at Point A’). The radar-derived 24-hour total precipitation showing Baseline A-A’ can be seen here.

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