GOES-16 (GOES-East) True Color Red-Green-Blue (RGB) images created using Geo2Grid (above) showed sea ice features off the southeast coast of Greenland on 30 April 2020. The ice structures were deformed by northerly winds behind a weak disturbance that was moving southward farther offshore.

Thanks to Antonio Vecoli for alerting us to thee interesting ice formations.

Sea Ice swirls decorating eastern coast of #Greenland as seen yesterday by @CopernicusEU #Sentinel3 #OLCI #seaice @ESA_EO @Oceanjournal @PlymouthMarine @esa_cryosat @craigdonlon @greenlandicesmb @MartinStendel @stracma @AnnaPhoebe @PhilipSime @Steven_Ramage @GEOSEC2025 pic.twitter.com/AfoNOjtXwm

— antonio vecoli (@tonyveco) May 1, 2020

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Overlapping 1-minute Mesoscale Domain Sectors provided GOES-16 (GOES-East) “Red” Visible (0.64 µm) images at 30-second intervals (above) — which showed rapidly-developing thunderstorms over northeastern Oklahoma, southeastern Kansas and southwestern Missouri on 28 April 2020. These storms developed along and ahead of an approaching cold front, and produced large hail and damaging winds (SPC Storm Reports).

The corresponding 30-second GOES-16 “Clean” Infrared Window (10.35 µm) images are shown below.

NOAA-20 Gridded NUCAPS fields of Most-Unstable CAPE at 1927 UTC (below) indicated that an axis of high instability existed along the Kansas/Missouri border shortly preceding convective initiation.

Within that axis of instability along the Kansas/Missouri border, the NUCAPS profile for the green (using both Infrared and Microwave retrievals) sounding point in far eastern Kansas (located northeast of Chanute, station identifier KCNU) is shown above —  for the Most Unstable air parcel, calculated CAPE was 3714 J/kg, with a Lifted Index of -12ºC.

Farther to the south, the NUCAPS profile for the yellow (using only Microwave retrievals) sounding point (located east-southeast of KCNU) is shown below — for the Most Unstable air parcel, calculated CAPE was 3714 J/kg, with a Lifted Index of -14ºC.

The closest rawinsonde report (in terms of time and distance) was from Springfield in southwestern Missouri at 18 UTC (below) — it indicated Most Unstable CAPE and Lifted Index values of 3060 J/kg and -6ºC, respectively. The later availability of NUCAPS soundings closer to the region of convective initiation revealed the rapid atmospheric destabilization that allowed for explosive development of the severe thunderstorms as seen on GOES-16 imagery.

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1-minute Mesoscale Domain Sector GOES-16 (GOES-East) “Clean” Infrared Window (10.35 µm) images, with and without an overlay of GLM Flash Extent Density (above) showed an isolated large thunderstorm moving east-southeastward across the Mexico/Texas border region during the early evening hours on 27 April 2020. Concentric storm-top gravity waves could be seen propagating radially outward from the storm center (for example, at 0211 UTC) — and pulsing overshooting tops were evident, with the coldest cloud-top infrared brightness temperature of -77.5ºC  occurring at 0128 UTC.

After about 0030 UTC, the GLM Flash Extent Density (FED) began to increase with this storm — in fact, the FED just northwest of Del Rio International Airport (KDRT) rapidly rose from 122 flashes per 5 minutes at 0119 UTC to 189 flashes per 5 minutes at 0139 UTC. During the period of this lightning jump, damaging winds — including a wind gust of 77 mph at KDRT at 0135 UTC — occurred in the Del Rio area (SPC Storm Reports).

8:08p 4/27/2020 – This storm in South Central Val Verde County is producing a ton of lightning. The NLDN reported a total of over 700 strikes out of the storm. A few of these lightning strikes have occurred well out ahead of the storm with one or two within 10 miles of Del Rio.

— NWS Austin/San Antonio (@NWSSanAntonio) April 28, 2020

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Nishinoshima is a small volcanic island (at 27.2471° N, 140.8779° E) about 150 km west of Chichijima.)  Nishinoshima has grown in size over the past decades because of volcanic activity, including activity (apparently accompanied by occasional earthquakes) that started in March 2020.   Day Night Band imagery from NOAA-20, above, (toggled with an annotated image) shows the light from the ongoing volcanic activity on 19 April 2020 (Clean Window Infrared imagery also showed a heat source).  (Day Night Band imagery is also available here, from NASA Worldview)

Many thanks to Brandon Aydlett, WFO Guam, for the imagery.

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The toggle below (imagery courtesy William Straka, CIMSS), shows more NOAA-20 VIIRS data from the same NOAA-20 pass:  Day Night Band Imagery, 3.75 µm Shortwave Infrared imagery (Band I04), 1.61 µm near-infrared imagery (Band M10) and 2.26 µm (Band M11),  4.05 µm Shortwave Imagery (Band M13), and the VIIRS Active Fire Product.  All show evidence of the hot spot over the volcano.

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