GOES-16 (GOES-East) “Red” Visible (0.64 µm), Near-Infrared “Snow/Ice” (1.61 µm), Near-Infrared “Cloud Particle Size” (2.24 µm), Shortwave Infrared (3.9 µm) and Fire Temperature RGB images along with Fire Temperature, Fire Power and Fire Area derived products (above) showed reflectance and thermal signatures of sunlight reflecting off large arrays of solar panels at solar farms across southern/central Minnesota on 23 June 2021. These bright/warm signatures were more pronounced from larger solar farms — with the warmest being exhibited by a solar farm southeast of Redwood Falls in southwestern Minnesota (Shortwave Infrared: 50.6ºC / Fire Temperature: 853.9 K / Fire Power: 126.8 MW).

The Fire Temperature / Fire Power / Fire Area derived products are components of the GOES Fire Detection and Characterization Algorithm (FDCA).

Previous blog posts discussing solar farm signatures can be found here, here and here.

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1-minute Mesoscale Domain Sector GOES-16 (GOES-East) “Red” Visible (0.64 µm) images (above) include time-matched plots of SPC Storm Reports — and showed severe thunderstorms across eastern Colorado, western Kansas and far southwestern Nebraska late in the day on 19 June 2021. Numerous pulsing overshooting tops were evident with many of these storms. Wind gusts to 88 mph were reported in Kansas

The corresponding 1-minute GOES-16 “Clean” Infrared Window (10.35 µm) images (below) displayed cloud-top infrared brightness temperatures as cold as -75 to -79ºC (brighter white pixels within dark black clusters) with some of the more robust overshooting tops.

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The Potential Tropical Cyclone that has been moving northward through the Gulf of Mexico made landfall southwest of New Orleans, LA on Saturday 19 June as a minimal Tropical Cyclone. The animation of total precipitable water, above, from the MIMIC TPW website, shows that most of the storm’s moisture is east of the center. (The circulation of Pacific Tropical Storm Dolores is also apparent, making landfall near Punta San Telmo in Mexico) A percent-of-Normal plots from NOAA/NESDIS/OSPO, below, shows values about 150% of normal over much of the southeast USA. Consequently, Flash Flood Watches are in effect over much of southern Alabama northeastward into western North Carolina, as shown below.

A True-Color image from CSPP Geosphere, below, taken from this link, shows the storm inland over southwestern Alabama; much of the rain and deep moisture with the storm remains to the east of the center.

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24-hour precipitation totals (from this site) are shown above. The analysis shows a few spots in northern Alabama received 6-8″ of rain.

CMORPH2 estimates for the 24-hours of precipitation ending at 0000 UTC on 20 June (that is, 12 hours before the estimate above), from RealEarth, are shown below.

GSMaP (link) also shows satellite-derived precipitation estimates. The 24-hour estimate ending at 0000 UTC on 20 June is shown below.

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1-minute Mesoscale Domain Sector GOES-16 (GOES-East) “Red” Visible (0.64 µm) images (above) include time-matched plots of SPC Storm Reports — and showed severe thunderstorms associated with the landfall of Tropical Storm Claudette (surface analyses) early in the day on 19 June 2021. Numerous pulsing overshooting tops were evident with some of these storms.

The corresponding 1-minute GOES-16 “Clean” Infrared Window (10.35 µm) images (below) displayed cloud-top infrared brightness temperatures as cold as -80ºC (violet pixels) with some of the more robust overshooting tops. On both the Visible and Infrared images, Butler County, Alabama is outlined in blue — with Interstate Highways plotted in violet. A multi-vehicle accident with 10 fatalities occurred along Interstate 65 in far northeastern Butler County around 1830 UTC (2:30 PM local time); although no severe weather was reported in Butler County, the Infrared images showed cold cloud-top brightness temperatures moving northeastward over that area during much of the morning hours, so heavy rainfall and wet roads (with some residual areas of ponding water) may have been a contributing factor to this accident. Greenville in Butler County received 1.71 inches of rainfall — but not far to the southwest, Evergreen in Conecuh County received 3.16 inches of rainfall during the landfall of Claudette.

Additional details regarding Claudette’s abundant tropical moisture and resulting heavy rainfall can be found on this blog post.

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