GOES-16 viewed the development of a house fire over rural Winnebago County in Nekimi Township, west of Lake Winnebago on late Sunday night 24 February 2019.  The animation above shows warm pixel developing starting at 0439 UTC.  One-minute imagery was available because the county falls within the northern part of the westernmost default mesoscale sector for GOES-16.

The toggle below compares the 0438 and 0439 UTC imagery.  (Actually 04:38:51 and 04:39:51).  The fire becomes apparent to GOES in the later image. Google satellite views suggest the house had a footprint around 2000 square feet.

Winnebago County Emergency Services were alerted to this fire at 0417 UTC. The background temperature for the 3.9 µm imagery on this date was around -16ºC. Pixel brightness temperatures increased to -2.6ºC between 0438 and 0454 UTC.

Thanks to Rich Mamrosh, NWS Green Bay, for alerting us to this interesting case!

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A large and rapidly-deepening midlatitude cyclone (surface analyses) moved northeastward across the Midwest and Great Lakes on 24 February 2019. GOES-16 (GOES-East) Mid-level Water Vapor (6.9 µm) images (above) showed the storm circulation that featured a pronounced dry slot — strong winds were widespread, with gusts of 60 knots or higher occurring in 16 states (WPC storm summary). New February records for lowest pressure were set in northern Michigan at Alpena (978.7 hPa) and Sault Ste. Marie (976.6 hPa). Blizzard conditions closed many interstates and highways across the Upper Midwest.

1-minute Mesoscale Domain Sector GOES-16 “Red” Visible (0.64 µm) images (below) revealed the eastward motion of wind-driven ice across southern Lake Michigan.

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A toggle between Observed Precipitation and Percent of Normal Precipitation for the 30-day period ending at 12 UTC on 24 February 2019 (above) showed a large area that received 10-15 inches of rainfall — which was 200-400% of normal — across the Lower Mississippi River and Tennessee River Valleys.

A before/after comparison of Terra MODIS False Color Red-Green-Blue (RGB) images from 25 January and 24 February 2019 (below) revealed the extensive area of flooding that resulted. Flooded areas appear as varying shades of blue on the False Color imagery (source).

In a comparison of Terra MODIS True Color and False Color RGB images from 24 February (below), many of the flooded rivers exhibit a tan-colored appearance in the True Color image due to large amounts of sediment suspended in the water.

A Flood Map derived using NOAA-20 VIIRS data (below) quantitatively showed the extent of the flooding. CIMSS scientists Jay Hoffman and William Straka contributed to the development of this food monitoring product.

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Lake Effect Snow off Pyramid Lake will affect the morning commute for much of Reno-Sparks. Accumulations up 3 inches with locally heavier amount through noon today. Slow down when in the band. #LakeEffect pic.twitter.com/ul2RJRb46F

— NWS Reno (@NWSReno) February 21, 2019

GOES-17 (GOES-West) “Clean” Infrared Window (10.3 µm) images (above) showed an unusual lake effect snow feature downwind of Pyramid Lake in northwestern Nevada on 21 February 2019 — the surface visibility dropped to 0.5 mile with moderate snow as ihe lake effect cloud moved over Reno-Tahoe International Airport around 16 UTC. Prior to that, the lake effect snow also affected portions of Interstate 80 in the Patrick area.

A morning overpass of the NOAA-19 satellite provided a 1-km resolution Infrared Window (10.8 µm) image of the lake effect cloud at 1254 UTC (below). The coldest cloud-top infrared brightness temperature on that image was -46ºC.

GOES-17 cloud-top infrared brightness temperatures associated with this feature were as cold as -47ºC just after 15 UTC, which were very close to the tropopause temperature of -47.9ºC on 12 UTC rawinsonde data from Reno (below).

Although clouds often prevented a good view of Lake Pyramid, Terra MODIS Sea Surface Temperature values of 42º and 43ºF were sampled on 11 and 16 February (below). With a northerly flow of air having temperatures around 20ºF across such warm water, significant boundary layer instability was generated to aid the growth of the lake effect cloud feature.

Although the view angle from GOES-16 (GOES-East) was rather large, a Land Surface Temperature pixel mapped to the northern portion of the lake had a value of 39.3ºF at 1701 UTC (below).

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