On a rare High Risk Convective Outlook day, a widespread outbreak of severe thunderstorms produced tornadoes, large hail and damaging winds (SPC Storm Reports) across a large swath of the central and eastern US during the afternoon and subsequent nighttime hours on 02 April 2025 — along and ahead of a cold front and pre-frontal squall line (surface analyses). As mentioned in this blog post, GOES-19 had arrived at the GOES-East position (over the Equator at 75.2ºW Longitude) and had begun broadcasting data — which presented an opportunity for a GOES-16 (the current operational GOES-East) vs. GOES-19 comparison during this severe weather outbreak.

There was some overlap of Mesoscale Domain Sector 2 from both satellites (below) — the 1-minute GOES images included plots of time-matched (+/- 3 minutes) SPC Storm Reports (T=Tornado, TEF2=Tornado rated at EF2 damage, H275=Hail of 2.75″ in diameter, W=Wind damage, W90=Wind gust of 90 mph).

Closer views of a few areas that received notable severe weather are shown below:

Central Illinois Tornadoes/Hail/Damaging Winds

GOES-16 vs. GOES-19 Visible images (above) and Infrared images (below) showed convection that produced an EF2-rated tornado, hail as large as 2.00″ in diameter and wind gusts as high as 90 mph in central Illinois. In the Visible imagery, small-scale features such as thunderstorm overshooting tops were resolved equally well by both satellites; in the Infrared images, cloud-top infrared brightness temperatures of cold features such as overshooting tops were generally in very good agreement (separated by 0.1 K or less).

Missouri/Arkansas/Kentucky Tornadoes

GOES-16 and GOES-19 Infrared images (above) showed thunderstorms that produced several tornadoes across southeast Missouri and southwest Kentucky, including an EF3-rated tornado in southeast Missouri around 2013 UTC and a fatal EF2-rated tornado in southeast Missouri around 2332 UTC. These storms also produced hail to 2.75″ in diameter and wind gusts to 70 mph.

Indiana Tornadoes/Damaging Winds

GOES-16 and GOES-19 Infrared images (above) displayed thunderstorms that produced EF1-rated tornadoes and wind gusts to 100 mph in parts of Indiana.

Tennessee/Mississippi Tornadoes

GOES-16 and GOES-19 Infrared images (above) depicted thunderstorms that produced tornadoes across northern Mississippi and southwest Tennessee — including an EF3-rated tornado that impacted Selmer, Tennessee around 0542 UTC, and a fatal tornado near La Grange, Tennessee around 0631 UTC. Well-defined Enhanced-V storm top signatures were associated with some of these tornado-producing thunderstorms (numerous examples of Enhanced-V storm top signatures have been shown on this blog).

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GOES-19, scheduled to become the operational GOES-East satellite on 4 April (Friday morning) no earlier than 7 April (updated on 3 April because of a Critical Weather Day), is now on station at 75.2^oW and broadcasting data. GOES-16, to be replaced, has been shifted slightly westward; data from both satellites are remapped to a grid centered at 75^oW. The comparion above shows the airmass RGB (computed using geo2grid and its underlying Satpy libraries). The two products are similar enough to be nearly indistinguishable. Scientists at CIMSS (and elsewhere) are working to make certain that the switch to GOES-19 is seamless.

The toggle below compares LightningCast probability contours on top of a Day Cloud Phase Distinction RGB — created using the CSPP Geo LightningCast software — for GOES-16 and GOES-19; the Day Cloud Phase Distinction RGB imagery is very similar and the LightningCast contours are largely the same.

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Darker shades of red in GOES-16 (GOES-East) Day Snow-Fog RGB images on 31 March 2025 (above) highlighted areas in eastern/northeastern Minnesota, northern Wisconsin and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan that received an accrual of ice (from sleet and/or freezing rain/drizzle) as a late-season winter storm moved across the region during the previous 2 days. In the RGB images — created using Geo2Grid — snow-covered ground appeared as brighter shades of red, with bare ground exhibiting shades of green; clouds appeared as shades of white to pale yellow/green (depending on the cloud-top phase).

A sequence of GOES-16 Visible and Near-Infrared “Snow/Ice” images is shown below — areas that received significant ice accretion exhibited darker shades of black in the Snow/Ice images. The highest ice accretion amounts in northern Wisconsin were 0.50″ in Forest and Oconto County, with 0.50″ also reported in Delta County in the UP of Michigan.

On the following day, clouds had cleared enough across the eastern UP of Michigan and northern Lower Michigan to reveal a darker-red Day Snow-Fog RGB signature of the areal coverage of ice accrual in those areas (below).

In a toggle between GOES-16 Day Snow-Fog RGB and True Color RGB images (below), in northern Lower Michigan note the lack of a brighter white True Color appearance along the southern edge of the strong (darker red) Day Snow-Fog ice accrual signature — a layer of ice on the ground with no snow cover is generally translucent.

A sequence of GOES-16 Visible and Near-Infrared “Snow/Ice” images is shown below — areas that received significant ice accretion exhibited darker shades of black in the Snow/Ice images. The highest ice accretion amounts in northern Lower Michigan were 1.50″ in Oconto County, 0.76″ in Presque Isle County and 0.75″ in Oscoda County.

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The east coast of the United States, Atlantic Canada, Greenland and Iceland were in the path of a solar eclipse at/shortly after sunrise on 29 March 2025, as shown in the visible imagery animation above (direct link to animation here) downloaded from the CSPP Geosphere site. Much of the region was cloudy this morning, so viewing the Sun at/near sunrise was a challenge unless you were in northern Maine or New Brunswick.

The next Solar Eclipse will be on September 21 2025, in the southern Hemisphere.

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