GOES-17 (GOES-West) “Red” Visible (0.64 µm) images (above) displayed cloud streets across the Bering Sea — cloud features that frequently occur in areas with a strong flow of cold air over warmer water. This northerly flow of cold air across the Bering Sea was due to a strong pressure gradient between high pressure over Siberia and broad low pressure centered over the Gulf of Alaska (surface analyses).

In a GOES-17 Visible image with plots of ASCAT scatterometer surface winds from Metop-A (below), ASCAT sampled winds with speeds as high as 33 knots (although the instrument did not adequately sample the western portion of the Bering Sea, where the strongest winds likely existed).

A sequence of Suomi NPP VIIRS Day/Night Band (0.7 µm) images (below) provided higher-resolution views of the cold air advection cloud streets.

A toggle between Suomi NPP VIIRS Day/Night Band (DNB) and GOES-17 Visible images around 2320 UTC (below) highlighted the advantage of  VIIRS DNB imagery at high latitudes, particularly during low-light periods of the winter season.

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GOES-16 versions of the GOES-R Fog/Low Stratus products, such as IFR/Low IFR/Marginal VFR Probability fields, and GOES-R Cloud Thickness, are now available in RealEarth. These products are still available at the CIMSS GEOCAT site as well (link, for an image like this), but RealEarth offers pan, zoom and overlay capabilities. The RealEarth image from 1401 UTC on 5 January is shown above; the same time image from AWIPS is shown below. This link shows a more recent image in RealEarth.

GOES-17 IFR Probability will become available once that product is deemed Operational. Additional information on IFR Probability products is available at the Fog Blog.

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1-minute Mesoscale Domain Sector GOES-17 (GOES-West) “Red” Visible (0.64 µm) and “Clean” Infrared Window (10.35 µm) images (above) showed thunderstorms moving eastward across Northern California on 04 January 2021, which produced 2 tornadoes (SPC Storm Reports) in the Sacramento Valley south and southeast of Red Bluff (KRBL). Vertical wind shear was evident in the Visible imagery, with low clouds moving northwestward and mid/upper-level clouds moving eastward.

A toggle between Suomi NPP VIIRS Visible (0.64 µm) and Infrared Window (11.45 µm) images at 2148 UTC (below) showed the storm that produced a tornado in Corning approximately 8 minutes earlier. The coldest cloud-top infrared brightness temperatures were around -38ºC (darker shades of yellow).

MIMIC Total Precipitable Water images during the 02-04 January time period (below) showed a long ribbon of moisture (a necessary ingredient for convection) impinging upon Northern California — and a mid-tropospheric trough (500 hPa analysis) along with a cold front that was moving inland (surface analyses) provided forcing for ascent to further enhance convective development.

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Daily Full Disk imagery

By animating daily NOAA GOES-16 or GOES-17 ABI Full Disk visible imagery, the year are 2020 can be shown quickly in review. The GOES-16 loops show an 18 UTC image each day of 2020, while GOES-17 shows an image from 21 UTC. The images are Rayleigh-corrected composites. The GOES-16 loop is similar to a loop that includes the Winter Solstice.

Other versions as an mp4, from the ABI on GOES-16: small, medium and large. Although it should be noted that all these images are drastically sub-sampled from the higher spatial resolution imagery.

A similar year-long animation, from GOES-17 at 21 UTC daily. This time was chosen for a maximum illumination of the full disk.

Other mp4 versions, as mp4, from the ABI on GOES-17: small and medium.

Daily Regional Views

Year-long, GOES-16 loops at 18 UTC have been generated for other regions, including: the Northeast, Mid-Atlantic, Southeast, Texas and part of the Gulf of Mexico, Central US, Southwest, Northwest and the Midwest. Similar loops from GOES-17 have been generated using images from 21 UTC for both Alaska and Hawaii. These loops begin on January 1, 2020.

Hourly Views of the Midwest

A very large (~800 MB) file, showing a year-long (hourly) GOES-16 file over the Midwest (duration of 14 min) covering 2020. Many features can be seen, including clouds, smoke and snow. Note that this loop is sub-sampled in time by a factor of 12. RGB imagery of the CIMSS (Natural) true color (during the day) and the nighttime cloud microphysics (during the night) are shown.

These images were made with geo2grid s/w, with NOAA GOES data via the UW-Madison, SSEC.

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