GOES-16 CONUS sector imagery, above, captured from CSPP Geosphere (link), over Tropical Depression Fred just north of eastern Cuba in the Atlantic Ocean, shows a ragged circulation with very little convection in the center (click here to download the mp4 above). Fred has been disrupted by its passage over the terrain of Hispaniola. Fred is embedded within southwesterly shear as shown below; that shear and the lack of convection near the center limits the speed with which Fred will be able to intensify.

Will dry air limit Fred’s intensification? MIMIC (Morphed Integrated Microwave Imagery at CIMSS) Total Precipitable Water (TPW) imagery at 1700 UTC on 12 August 2021, below, shows some pockets of dry air over the central Caribbean, and to the north of Fred and just west of Fred (and a large area of dry air to the east). (Note also Pacific Hurricane Linda to the south of Mexico at the western edge of the domain!) Overall however, the environment seems moist.

Gridded NUCAPS estimates of low-level moisture in the form of 900-700 mb mean Relative Humidity, below, and of 850-500 mb mean Relative Humidity, at bottom, are more indicative of dry air in the lower troposphere surrounding the storm. Gridded fields of NUCAPS relative humidity are available online here.

For more information on Fred, refer to the National Hurricane Center website (here) or the SSEC/CIMSS Tropical Weather website (here).

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The VIIRS Today website (link) contains daily imagery from the Day Night Bands on both Suomi NPP and on NOAA-20. For example, here are three images from Suomi-NPP on 12 August over the Pacific Northwest and northern California: 2-km resolution, 1-km resolution, and 250-km resolution. The animation below shows Day Night Band imagery over northern California, showing the development of the Dixie Fire (14 July) and its expansion and motion over the subsequent weeks. The animation was derived from 1-km resolution imagery.

Smoke from the fire is occasionally obvious in the imagery (for example on 2 August), depending on the amount of lunar illumination. Clouds also cover the fire at times, but the light emanated from the fire shines through. A fire to the east that is in progress when the Dixie fire starts is contained during the first week of the animation. Other fires are apparent as well, but the Dixie Fire is the longest-lasting one in the animation. The Dixie Fire has occasionally burned hot enough to product pyrocumulonimbus clouds, as shown here.

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Shortwave Infrared (3.9 µm) images from GOES-17, GOES-15, GOES-14 and GOES-16 [click to play animation | MP4]

The GOES-14 satellite was brought out of storage on 11 August 2021, for its annual checkout activities (NOAA bulletin). Shortwave Infrared (3.9 µm) images (above) provided a 4-GOES view of the thermal anomalies (or hot pixels, darker black enhancement) exhibited by the Richard Spring Fire in southeastern Montana. On that day the fire had burned over 149,000 acres, and was only 15% contained. The 4 panels of images are displayed in the native projection of each satellite.

GOES-14 Imager spectral band images at 1755 UTC on 11 July 2021 (credit: Tim Schmit, NOAA/NESDIS/ASPB) [click to enlarge]

The GOES-14 Imager has the same 5 spectral bands (above) as GOES-15 (below).

GOES-15 Imager spectral band images at 1800 UTC on 11 July 2021 (credit: Tim Schmit, NOAA/NESDIS/ASPB) [click to enlarge]

A sequence of Infrared images from EWS-G1 (formerly GOES-13), GOES-17, GOES-15, GOES-14 and GOES-16 — between 1345 UTC and 1500 UTC on 13 August — is shown below. Full-resolution data from all 5 of the GOES were received by satellite antennas operated by SSEC Satellite Data Services.

Sequence of Infrared images from EWS-G1 (formerly GOES-13), GOES-17, GOES-15, GOES-14 and GOES-16 (credit: Tim Schmit, NOAA/NESDIS/ASPB) [click to enlarge | MP4]

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GOES-16 “Clean” Infrared Window (10.35 µm) and “Red” Visible (0.64 µm) images [click to play animation | MP4]

Potential Tropical Cyclone 6 was upgraded to Tropical Storm Fred at 03 UTC on 11 August 2021, just south of Puerto Rico — and 1–minute Mesoscale Domain Sector GOES-16 (GOES-East) “Red” Visible (0.64 µm) and “Clean” Infrared Window (10.35 µm) images (above) showed Fred as it made landfall along the southern coast of the Dominican Republic around 18 UTC.

Fred was moving through an environment characterized by relatively low values of deep-layer wind shear, according to an analysis from the CIMSS Tropical Cyclones site (below).

GOES-16 Infrared (11.2 µm) images, with contours of deep-layer wind shear at 19 UTC [click to enlarge]

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