GOES-17 data in this post are preliminary and non-operational

CONUS (Contiguous United States) imagery at 5-minute intervals from GOES-16 at 75.2 W Longitude and GOES-17 at 89.5 W Longitude allows for Hurricane Michael to be viewed stereroscopically from space. The animation above, starting at 1142 UTC and extending to sunset, (click here for an animated gif) shows an intensifying Michael with strong convection developing over the center.  To view in three dimensions, cross you eyes until 3 images are present, and focus on the image in the center.  Very strong shear is also apparent northeast of Michael.  Low-level winds and upper-level winds do not align, and convection there is strongly tilted.  (This graphic of shear is from the CIMSS Tropical Weather Website)

Sea-surface Temperatures over the Gulf (Source), below, show abundant warm water between Michael and its project landfall location along the northeast Gulf Coast (See the National Hurricane Center for latest information).

The animation shows the stereoscopic view on 9 October 2018. An animated gif is available here.

The animation below is shows Michael’s eye at full GOES-16/GOES-17 resolution starting at 1402 UTC on 9 October.

A full-resolution of Michael’s well-developed eye on 10 October is shown below.

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1-minute Mesoscale Domain Sector GOES-16 (GOES-East) “Clean” Infrared Window (10.3 µm) images (above) showed deep convection associated with Tropical Depression 14 east of Belize and the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico early in the day on 07 October 2018. There was a large area of cloud-top infrared brightness temperatures in the -80ºC to -89ºC range (shades of purple), with isolated small pockets of -90ºC or colder (yellow enhancement).

1-minute GOES-16 “Red” Visible (0.64 µm) images from the UW-AOS site (below) showed numerous convective overshooting tops.

At 1655 UTC the system was upgraded to Tropical Storm Michael — 1-minute GOES-16 Infrared images (below) showed that deep convection persisted in the eastern semicircle of Michael during the remainder of the day.

A hint of the elongated low-level circulation could be seen just west of the deep convection on late-day GOES-16 Visible images (below).

===== 08 October Update =====

NOAA-20 VIIRS Day/Night Band (0.7 µm), Infrared Window (11.45 µm) and ATMS Microwave (88 GHz) images at 0721 UTC (above; courtesy of William Straka, CIMSS) indicated that a well-defined convective band was wrapping around the eastern, northern and northwestern portions of the storm center (with some bright lightning streaks showing up on the DNB image in the southeastern segment of this convective band).

In a comparison of DMSP-18 SSMIS Microwave (86 GHz) and GOES-16 Infrared Window (10.3 µm) images at or shortly after 1115 UTC (below), the Microwave imagery showed a very large eye beneath the convective clusters.

Michael was upgraded to a Category 1 hurricane at 15 UTC; 1-minute GOES-16 “Red” Visible (0.64 µm) images (below) revealed abundant deep convection around the core of the storm during the 3 hours leading up to that time.

Michael had been moving over very warm water since forming on 06 October; analyses of Ocean Heat Content and Sea Surface Temperature (below) showed that while the hurricane was forecast to briefly pass over a region of lower OHC in the far southeastern Gulf of Mexico, the remainder of its journey across the Gulf would be over water possessing modest amounts of OHC and warm SST values of 29-30ºC.

Similarly, a relatively cloud-free Terra MODIS Sea Surface Temperature product from 0343 UTC on 06 October (below) showed SST values of 84-85ºF (darker red colors) along much of the forecast path of Hurricane Michael (issued at 2100 UTC on 08 October).

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* GOES-17 images shown here are preliminary and non-operational *

A strong cold front (surface analyses | max/min temperatures) moved southward across the Plains states during the 03 October – 04 October 2018 period — and GOES-17 Upper-level Water Vapor (6.2 µm) images (above) revealed a distinct leeside frontal gravity wave as it propagated from southern Colorado and southern Kansas at 05 UTC to southeastern New Mexico and the southern Texas Panhandle by 20 UTC. Thunderstorms formed along the stalled residual wave along the New Mexico/Texas border after 1930 UTC.

Pilot reports of high-altitude “mountain wave” turbulence (below) were seen at 1559 and 1721 UTC, along the north-to-south oriented portion of the gravity wave that had become stationary over eastern New Mexico.

A 1-km resolution Aqua MODIS Water Vapor (6.7 µm) image at 0807 UTC (below) showed detailed gravity wave structure over Oklahoma.

A 3-panel comparison of GOES-17 Low-level (7.3 µm), Mid-level (6.9 µm) and Upper-level (6.2 µm) Water Vapor images with plots of surface wind barbs (below) showed how the winds changed to northerly/northeasterly as the cold front passed.

Additional images of this event can be found on the Satellite Liaison Blog.

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1-minute Mesoscale Domain Sector GOES-16 (GOES-East) “Red” Visible (0.64 µm) images (above) showed severe thunderstorms that moved across Pennsylvania on 02 October 2018, producing large hail, damaging winds and a few tornadoes (SPC storm reports). A parallax-corrected version of the animation — which shifts the location of SPC storm reports northwestward, to be more closely aligned with the storm-top features (assumed to be at a mean altitude of 12 km, based on 00 UTC Pittsburgh rawinsonde data) seen on satellite imagery — is available here.

The corresponding GOES-16 “Clean” Infrared Window (10.3 µm) images (below) indicated that the coldest cloud-top infrared brightness temperatures were in the -60 to -70ºC range (red to black enhancement).

Updated listing of confirmed tornadoes from Tuesday's outbreak. 19 tornadoes have been confirmed with 14 tornadoes in PA, 3 in NY, and 2 in CT. 4 of the tornadoes were EF-2, 9 were EF-1, and 6 were EF-0. pic.twitter.com/xst6J9hhBI

— NWS Eastern Region (@NWSEastern) October 5, 2018

Just how rare are tornadoes in October? Very Rare…especially strong tornadoes like EF-2 or higher. In the last 50 years and in a 75 mile radius, there has only been two EF-0, four EF-1, three EF-2, and one EF-3 documented within 10 days of Oct 2nd. #PAwx #OHwx #ThisIsCLE #CLEwx pic.twitter.com/niwZdx6QZQ

— NWS Cleveland (@NWSCLE) October 3, 2018

UPDATE: We are now up to 14 confirmed tornadoes from Tuesday's event in Pennsylvania – that is more than the entire October #tornado count from 1950-2017 (13 total) #pawx pic.twitter.com/uNF5f7kLbn

— Weather World (@WeatherWorldPSU) October 5, 2018

Its been a wild year with the first recorded tornado in February in our service area! Prior to Tuesday only five recorded tornadoes ever in October since 1950. We beat that October number in one day with six and possibly more! #pawx

— NWS Pittsburgh (@NWSPittsburgh) October 5, 2018

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