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Blowing dust across Texas

W-NW winds gusting in excess of 50 mph in the wake of a cold front lofted areas of blowing dust across parts of Texas on 12 March 2025, as seen in GOES-16 (GOES-East) Visible images (above). Blowing dust reduced the visibility to 1-1/2 miles at times along the Interstate 20... Read More

GOES-16 Red Visible (0.64 µm) images with plots of Surface Wind barbs (white), Peak Wind gusts (yellow) and Ceiling/Visibility/Weather (cyan); Interstate highways are plotted in red [click to play MP4 animation]

W-NW winds gusting in excess of 50 mph in the wake of a cold front lofted areas of blowing dust across parts of Texas on 12 March 2025, as seen in GOES-16 (GOES-East) Visible images (above). Blowing dust reduced the visibility to 1-1/2 miles at times along the Interstate 20 corridor in the vicinity of Midland.

Daytime True Color RGB images created using Geo2Grid (below) provided a more distinct view of the blowing dust — and after sunset, Dust RGB images highlighted the airborne dust as shades of magenta.

GOES-16 daytime True Color RGB + nighttime Dust RGB images [click to play animated GIF | MP4]

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Ice leads in the eastern Beaufort Sea

A sequence of Suomi-NPP VIIRS Visible images (above) showed the formation of large ice leads in the eastern Beaufort Sea — as well as the growth of a polynya adjacent to the coast near the Alaska/Yukon border — during the 5-day period from 07-11 March 2025.Suomi-NPP VIIRS Shortwave Infrared images... Read More

Suomi-NPP VIIRS Visible images from 07-11 March [click to play animated GIF | MP4]

A sequence of Suomi-NPP VIIRS Visible images (above) showed the formation of large ice leads in the eastern Beaufort Sea — as well as the growth of a polynya adjacent to the coast near the Alaska/Yukon border — during the 5-day period from 07-11 March 2025.

Suomi-NPP VIIRS Shortwave Infrared images (below) provided a view of the ice leads and polynya during both the nighttime and daytime hours during the 07-11 March period.

Suomi-NPP VIIRS Shortwave Infrared images from 07-11 March [click to play animated GIF | MP4]

Daily composites of Suomi-NPP VIIRS Sea Ice Temperature/Thickness/Age products (source) indicated that the larger ice leads were developing near the gradient of temperature and thickness of old ice in the eastern Beaufort Sea (below).

Daily Suomi-NPP VIIRS Composite Sea Ice Temperature product, from 07-10 March [click to enlarge]

Daily Suomi-NPP VIIRS Composite Sea Ice Thickness product, from 07-10 March [click to enlarge]


Suomi-NPP VIIRS Composite Sea Ice Age product, from 07-10 March [click to enlarge]

In spite of lower spatial resolution and a large satellite viewing angle, the more prominent ice leads (as well as the polynya adjacent to the Alaska/Yukon coast) were also apparent in GOES-18 (GOES-West) Visible images from the CSPP GeoSphere site (below).

GOES-18 Visible images from 07-11 March [click to play MP4 animation]

Comparisons of Ice Stage and Ice Analysis (source) shown below indicated that the 2 largest ice leads and the polynya formed during the 7-day period between 03 March and 10 March.

Ice Stage on 03 March and 10 March [click to enlarge]

Ice analysis on 03 March and 10 March [click to enlarge]

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When upper air soundings are missing: NUCAPS can help

Several recent notices have announced that radiosonde-carrying balloon launches to measure the temperature and moisture (and winds) in the atmosphere are suspended due to personnel shortages. There are products available to mitigate this data shortage. NOAA-Unique Combined Atmospheric Processing System (NUCAPS) profiles (training video here) use data from CrIS/ATMS (on... Read More

Several recent notices have announced that radiosonde-carrying balloon launches to measure the temperature and moisture (and winds) in the atmosphere are suspended due to personnel shortages. There are products available to mitigate this data shortage. NOAA-Unique Combined Atmospheric Processing System (NUCAPS) profiles (training video here) use data from CrIS/ATMS (on NOAA-20/NOAA-21) and IASI/AMSU/MHS (on Metop-C) to create thermodynamic profiles.

Where can these data be accessed? For National Weather Service WFOs, they are available in AWIPS under the ‘Satellite’ tab (and then ‘JPSS Polar’); then look at ‘NUCAPS Sounding Availability’, shown below, and ‘Gridded NUCAPS’. When NUCAPS Sounding Availability is on your screen, you can profiles by clicking on the points. For example, the Sounding Availability plot below shows two different profile locations in far southern coastal Maine; profiles at these two points are shown below as well. The low-level warming one might expect during the day is captured well.

NUCAPS Sounding Availability over the northeast USA, 1415 UTC on 11 March 2025; this plot shows multiple overpasses (Click to enlarge)
Nsharp Sounding Display for two NUCAPS Profiles near 43.5 N, 70.4 W, 1644 and 1737 UTC on 11 March 2025 (Click to enlarge)

Gridded NUCAPS fields show values that have been interpolated to a pressure level on a grid. In the animation of 850-mb temperature plotted in AWIPS and shown below, showing a combination of MetopC, NOAA-20 and NOAA-21 fields, the 0oC isotherm is progressing northward through Maine in the 11 hours shown. The number of observations is far greater than the number of radiosondes that would have launched in this time.

850-mb Temperatures from gridded NUCAPS fields, 0600-1730 UTC on 11 March 2025. The black contour highlights 32 F/0 C (Click to enlarge)

Gridded NUCAPS fields are also available online. The images below show values over the Pacific Ocean (where radiosondes are routinely absent), and they show a stable and dry region arcing toward the Pacific Northwest from the tropics. Perhaps the cloudband in about the same location in the nightmicrophysics RGB (from the CSPPGeosphere site) is related to this NUCAPS-observed feature.

Gridded NUCAPS estimates of 850-700 mb lapse rate and 700-mb Relative Humidity, 1022 UTC on 11 March 2025 (left) and GOES-18 Night Microphysics RGB at the same time (right) (Click to enlarge)

Use gridded NUCAPS when (that is, always!) you need supplemental observations of the troposphere.

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NGFS detections of a small marsh fire in Brookfield WI

A fire on Sunday 9 March in suburban Milwaukee (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel articles 1, 2, 3; I read it about it in the paper: Page 1; Page 2) burned about 100 acres just north of Capitol Drive as shown in the 10 March 2025 image above from the Journal Sentinel. What kind... Read More

A fire on Sunday 9 March in suburban Milwaukee (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel articles 1, 2, 3; I read it about it in the paper: Page 1; Page 2) burned about 100 acres just north of Capitol Drive as shown in the 10 March 2025 image above from the Journal Sentinel. What kind of alert did NGFS provide for this small fire? The slow animation below shows the NGFS Microphysics RGB from routine CONUS scanning (that is, every 5 minutes; mesoscale sectors producing imagery every minute were positioned elsewhere on the 9th). The first NGFS alert was at 1846 UTC, a bit after the 1:39 PM 911 call that alerted first responders.

NGFS Microphysics RGB at 1836, 1841, 1846, 1851 and 1856 UTC on 9 March 205 (Click to enlarge)

NGFS imagery includes Google Maps that can inform a user about the location where the burn is detected. The slider below reveals the pixel size relative to the burning region, the marsh that burned, and the roads and businesses near the fire. (Here’s another google maps viewdirect link — that includes the Ford Dealership mentioned in the article, and a circle that highlights the intersection at the bottom of the burn-scar image shown up top). The area of the infrared pixel used to detect this fire is about twice the size of the area consumed; you might conclude that very little of the pixel at any one time was burning, and the detection of a fire of this small size is remarkable.

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