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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GOES-16 (GOES-East) Day Snow-Fog RGB and Land Surface Temperature product images on 01 January 2021 (above) showed a large portion of western and southwestern Texas in the wake of a winter storm that occurred on the previous day. On the RGB images, snow cover appeared as shades of red, with low clouds and fog taking on shades of white (shades of green denoted bare ground).

Wondering how much snow ? the winter storm brought? ? Here is a map depicting total snow fall amounts. Notice the sharp cutoff between the areas that got snow vs areas that didn’t get any! #TXwx #NMwx #Winterstorm pic.twitter.com/MMCpxTqaYS

— NWS Midland (@NWSMidland) January 1, 2021

With some areas receiving storm total accumulations of 8-15 inches, the deep snow cover kept Land Surface Temperature (LST) values from rising past the low-mid 30s F during the day — even at locations such as Fort Stockton (KFST), which remained generally cloud-free during the daytime hours (their daily maximum temperature was only 36ºF). Over adjacent bare ground areas, LST values rose into the 50s and 60s F with a full day of sunshine. Air temperatures — measured by sheltered sensors located about 5 feet above the ground — were sometimes 10-15ºF cooler than LST values over bare ground, but over deep snow cover the air temperatures were generally only 5-8ºF warmer than the LST values.

===== 02 January Update =====

On the following day, a lack of clouds allowed a good view of the areal coverage of remaining snow cover (above). During the peak of daytime heating, GOES-16 LST values were held to the middle 30s F over the areas with deeper snow cover — while air temperatures rose into the 40s F  (although the daily maximum temperature was only 40 at Big Spring KBPG). Over adjacent areas of bare ground, afternoon air temperatures rising into the 50s and 60s F were seen.

===== 04 January Update =====

A sequence of GOES-16 True Color RGB images during the period 02-04 January created using Geo2Grid (above) showed the gradual melting of most of the snow cover across western Texas.

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As noted here, the ftp site that holds imagery from the CIMSS/SSEC Direct Broadcast site (link) includes daytime True-Color imagery (spectacular imagery!) derived from the NOAA-20 and Suomi-NPP VIIRS instrument. Daily sectorized views of each of the Great Lakes are created, and these can be strung together, as in this web post, to show the changes around the Great Lakes during the month of December. The animation above shows the changes over Lake Superior during December. (Click here to view an mp4 animation rather than the very large animated gif).

The toggle below compares the view over/around Lake Superior on 1 and 31 December 2020. The increase in snowcover is apparent. Ice does not appear widespread on Lake Superior however.  The 31 December 2020 Lake Ice Analysis (image available here) from the Great Lakes Environmental Research Lab (GLERL) (source, from here), shows little ice.  The MIRS Lake Ice Concentration (shown at bottom, available via an LDM feed from CIMSS), similarly shows little ice in the Lakes.

Animations similar to Lake Superior’s can be accessed in this webpost as mp4s: (Lake Michigan, Lake Huron, Lake Erie, Lake Ontario) or as animated gifs (Lake Michigan, Lake Huron, Lake Erie, Lake Ontario).

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