Gridded NUCAPS fields (Here’s a NASA SpoRT VLab page on the product) are now available in AWIPS, effective with AWIPS Build 19.3.1. The imagery above includes a swath of NUCAPS points (called up via ‘NUCAPS Sounding Availability’) under the Satellite Tab, and the ‘S-NPP and NOAA-20’ choice there (even though, at present, only NOAA-20 NUCAPS profiles are supplied to AWIPS). A ‘Gridded NUCAPS’ choice is available right about the NUCAPS Sounding Availability, and this allows a user to choose Temperature, Dewpoint Temperature, Equivalent Potential Temperature, Lapse Rates (and more!) at different standard mandatory pressure levels (or layers, for Lapse Rates). Interpolation in the vertical has moved the native NUCAPS pressure levels (mentioned here) to standard pressure levels.

The plot above also shows the temperature at 500 hPa for the same time, 1304 UTC.  Gridded NUCAPS fields do not cover the entire extent of the NUCAPS Sounding Availability plots.  In addition, values are present for all sounding color dot points — green, yellow and red — on the theory that a user can identify the bad data visually.

The animation below shows a series of gridded fields over northern Canada, covering much of the the Sounding Availability plot.  Because of the timestamps on these different grids, they do not all time match the swath of NUCAPS Sounding Availability points. On this day, the size of some of the fields produced was quite small.  The size of the gridded region is limited by computational resources on AWIPS, and the upper limit is 20 lines of NUCAPS soundings — 600 soundings total that are horizontally and vertically interpolated. The size is also affected by the order in which the soundings appear in AWIPS. If a small chunk (say, 7 lines of soundings) comes in, then that small chunk will be processed into a horizontal grid. It’s more common that grid sizes will be closer to what occurred at 1304 UTC.

If you look in the Product Browser on AWIPS, you will find far more data than are available under the ‘Gridded NUCAPS’ menu under ‘NOAA-20 and S-NPP’ under the satellite tab.  (Here’s just a small sample!)  For example, you can plot Ozone estimates from NUCAPS, as shown below — loaded as a grid then converted to an image.  Expect the presentation of NUCAPS horizontal fields in AWIPS to evolve with time.  In the meantime, this is a valuable data set to determine (for example) the likelihood of snow v. rain based on the 925 Temperature and Dewpoint Depression.

(Thanks to Dr. Emily Berndt, NASA SpoRT, for clarifying remarks. Any errors that remain are the author’s, however!  Imagery courtesy NWS MKX)

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1-minute Mesoscale Domain Sector GOES-17 (GOES-West) Shortwave Infrared (3.9 µm) and “Red” Visible (0.64 µm) images (above) showed a wind-driven increase in areal coverage and smoke production from the Kincade Fire in Northern California on 27 October 2019. The fire made a rapid southwestward run of approximately 10 miles toward Highway 101 (plotted in red), as Diablo Winds increased during the nighttime hours — a wind gust of 102 mph was recorded at Pine Flat Road and 93 mph near Healdsburg Hills.

GOES-17 True Color Red-Green-Blue (RGB) images from the AOS site (below) showed how Kincade Fire smoke expanded across the Pacific Ocean during the day.

A sequence of VIIRS Shortwave Infrared (3.74 µm) images from Suomi NPP and NOAA-20 (below) showed the southwestward expansion of the large thermal anomaly associated with  the fire (Note: the NOAA-20 images are incorrectly labeled as Suomi NPP).

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GOES-16 and GOES-17, although separated by 60 of longitude, can be combined to create stereoscopic imagery in the Gulf of Mexico. The top-most animation, from 24 October 2019, shows the disturbance in the southwest Gulf of Mexico that ulimately becomes Tropical Storm Olga. The bottom animation is from 25 October, a day when the low-level circulation of the storm is apparent.

Tropical Storm Olga is at the northern edge of a very moist airmass as determined from Microwave measurements.  The MIMIC animation, below, from this site, shows the extent of the moist region.  (The moisture associated with Pablo is also apparent)  Dry air moving into the Gulf of Mexico from Texas is restricting the horizontal extent of the moisture. That front moving into the Gulf is expected to overtake Olga as it transitions to an extratropical storm. Heavy rains with this system have already moved into Louisiana and Mississippi.

For more information on Tropical Storm Olga, refer to the website of the National Hurricane Center. Interests along the Gulf Coast and inland should pay attention to this storm.

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GOES-16 (GOES-East) “Red” Visible (0.64 µm) and “Clean” Infrared Window (10.3 µm) images (above) displayed the compact circulation and pinhole eye of Tropical Storm Pablo which developed in the East Atlantic Ocean on 25 October 2019.

A toggle between Suomi NPP VIIRS True Color Red-Green-Blue (RGB) and Infrared Window (11.45 µm) images viewed using RealEarth  provided a higher-resolution view of Pablo around 15 UTC (below).

A larger-scale view of the VIIRS images (below) showed that the compact Pablo was embedded within a broad anomalously-deep area of low pressure over the eastern Atlantic.

===== 26 October Update =====

GOES-16 Visible and Infrared images (above) showed Tropical Storm Pablo southwest of the Azores on 26 October.

After sunset, GOES-16 Infrared images (below) captured Pablo as it pass across the Azores, southeast of Santa Maria (LPAZ) — during that time, the tropical cyclone lost its intermittent eye feature.

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