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High-altitude waves over the Arctic

By Scott Bachmeier •

GOES-17 (GOES-West) “Ozone” (9.61 µm) images (above) revealed waves propagating northwestward over northern Alaska, northern Yukon and the adjacent Beaufort Sea during the pre-dawn hours on 27 March 2020. That area was too illuminated by either aurora borealis or the rising sun — so Suomi NPP VIIRS Day/Night Band (0.7 µm) imagery could not confirm... Read More

GOES-17

GOES-17 “Ozone” (9.61 µm) images, with rawinsonde sites plotted in yellow [click to play animation | MP4]

GOES-17 (GOES-West) “Ozone” (9.61 µm) images (above) revealed waves propagating northwestward over northern Alaska, northern Yukon and the adjacent Beaufort Sea during the pre-dawn hours on 27 March 2020. That area was too illuminated by either aurora borealis or the rising sun — so Suomi NPP VIIRS Day/Night Band (0.7 µm) imagery could not confirm the presence of mesospheric airglow waves (see this blog post for some examples).

A plot of the GOES-17 “Ozone” spectral band weighting function — calculated using 12 UTC rawinsonde data from Fairbanks, Alaska — showed a peak contribution from within the stratosphere at the 39 hPa pressure level, corresponding to an altitude around 21 km (below).

Plot of GOES-17

Plot of GOES-17 “Ozone” (9.61 um) weighting function, calculated using 12 UTC rawinsonde data from Fairbanks, Alaska [click to enlarge]

The curious aspect of these waves was their northwestward propagation — rawinsonde data from 3 sites across the region (below) indicated that the winds aloft within the upper troposphere and throughout the stratosphere were strong northwesterly, which meant the waves were moving against the ambient flow. Lacking a coherent, science-based explanation for these wave features, this blog post earns its place in the “What the heck is this?” category.

Plots of rawinsonde data from Fairbanks, Alaska [click to enlarge]

Plots of rawinsonde data from Fairbanks, Alaska [click to enlarge]

Plots of rawinsonde data from Utqiagvik (formerly Barrow), Alaska [click to enlarge]

Plots of rawinsonde data from Utqiagvik (formerly Barrow), Alaska [click to enlarge]

Plots of rawinsonde data from Inuvik, Northwest Territories [click to enlarge]

Plots of rawinsonde data from Inuvik, Northwest Territories [click to enlarge]

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Year-long Animations of Visible and Infrared Images

By Scott Lindstrom •

A previous blog post (here) has shown 1-month animations of true-color visible imagery from geostationary satellites (GOES-16, GOES-17, Himawari-8, Meteosat-11 and others) wherein local noon longitudinal strips are blended together to create a global view. (Imagery courtesy Rick Kohrs, SSEC) (See also this blog post for an explanation). The animation above (Click... Read More

True-color visible imagery global montage from 6 March 2019 – 5 March 2020 (Click to launch containerized YouTube Vide)

A previous blog post (here) has shown 1-month animations of true-color visible imagery from geostationary satellites (GOES-16, GOES-17, Himawari-8, Meteosat-11 and others) wherein local noon longitudinal strips are blended together to create a global view. (Imagery courtesy Rick Kohrs, SSEC) (See also this blog post for an explanation). The animation above (Click it to view a YouTube animation within a container) shows visible true-color imagery for each day from 6 March 2019 through 5 March 2020.

The infrared imagery below combines the ‘clean window’ Band 13 channel on GOES-16 and GOES-17 (10.3 µm on both) with Band 13 on Himawari-8 (10.4 µm) and shows 2019 data at 6-h intervals.

Color-enhanced Window Channel infrared (ABI: 10.3 µm; AHI: 10.4 µm) imagery from 2019 (Click to launch containerized YouTube Vide)

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Anomalously-strong jet stream winds over Colorado

By Scott Bachmeier •

An anomalously-strong upper tropospheric jet stream was moving over northern Colorado on 25 March 2020 — GOES-16 (GOES-East) Upper-level Water Vapor (6.2 µm) images, with plots of Derived Motion Winds and contours of RUC40 model maximum wind speeds (above) revealed that the highest satellite-tracked Derived Motion Wind speeds just northeast of Grand Junction, Colorado (KGJT)... Read More

GOES-16 Upper-level Water Vapor (6.2 µm) images, with plots of Derived Motion Winds and contours of RUC40 model maximum wind speeds [click to play animation | MP4]

GOES-16 Upper-level Water Vapor (6.2 µm) images, with plots of 6.2 µm Derived Motion Winds and contours of RUC40 model maximum wind speeds [click to play animation | MP4]

An anomalously-strong upper tropospheric jet stream was moving over northern Colorado on 25 March 2020 — GOES-16 (GOES-East) Upper-level Water Vapor (6.2 µm) images, with plots of Derived Motion Winds and contours of RUC40 model maximum wind speeds (above) revealed that the highest satellite-tracked Derived Motion Wind speeds just northeast of Grand Junction, Colorado (KGJT) were 165 knots. RUC40 model Maximum Wind Speed values were also around 165 knots across that area. The strongest wind speeds in 00 UTC rawinsonde data from Grand Junction were 160 knots (below).

Plot of rawinsonde data from Grand Junction, Colorado at 00 UTC on 26 March [click to enlarge]

Plot of rawinsonde data from Grand Junction, Colorado at 00 UTC on 26 March [click to enlarge]

The 250 hPa GFS model wind speed anomalies (below) were 3-4 sigma above normal over northern Colorado at 00 UTC on 26 March (source).

250 hPa wind speed anomalies at 00 UTC on 26 March [click to enlarge]

250 hPa wind speed anomalies at 00 UTC on 26 March [click to enlarge]

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Fire activity across southern Mexico

By Scott Bachmeier •

GOES-16 (GOES-East) “Red” Visible (0.64 um) and Shortwave Infrared (3.9 um) images (above) showed smoke plumes and hot thermal signatures associated with wildfires between Pueblo (MMPB) and Veracruz (MMVC) in southern Mexico — smoke from these fire was drifting westward over the Mexico City (MMMX) area.Farther to the east, GOES-16 Shortwave Infrared... Read More

GOES-16

GOES-16 “Red” Visible (0.64 um) and Shortwave Infrared (3.9 um) images [click to play animation | MP4]

GOES-16 (GOES-East) “Red” Visible (0.64 um) and Shortwave Infrared (3.9 um) images (above) showed smoke plumes and hot thermal signatures associated with wildfires between Pueblo (MMPB) and Veracruz (MMVC) in southern Mexico — smoke from these fire was drifting westward over the Mexico City (MMMX) area.

Farther to the east, GOES-16 Shortwave Infrared images (below) displayed the hot thermal signatures of widespread agricultural fires across Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula. Such fires occur here and over much of Central America as farmers prepare their fields for another round of crop planting.

GOES-16 Shortwave Infrared (3.9 um) images [click to play animation | MP4]

GOES-16 Shortwave Infrared (3.9 um) images [click to play animation | MP4]

On a larger scale, GOES-16 True Color Red-Green-Blue (RGB) images created using Geo2Grid (below) revealed the northward transport of smoke across the Gulf of Mexico, which made it as far north as southern Texas by the end of the day.

GOES-16 True Color RGB images [click to play animation | MP4]

GOES-16 True Color RGB images [click to play animation | MP4]

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