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

GOES-15 (GOES-West), GOES-17 and GOES-16 (GOES-East) Visible images (above) showed the development of thunderstorms which produced hail and damaging winds (SPC storm reports) in the Phoenix, Arizona area on 02 August 2018. The images are displayed in the native projection of each satellite (no re-mapping). Due to a Full Disk scan, GOES-15 mages were only available every 30 minutes at the beginning of this particular time period; images from GOES-17 were every 5 minutes; a GOES-16 Mesoscale Domain Sector provided images at 1-minute intervals.

The strong thunderstorm winds also produced significant blowing dust — winds gusted to 47 knots (54 mph) and visibility was reduced to 1/2 mile at Phoenix KPHX (below). Winds gusted to 53 knots (61 mph) and visibility fell to 1/4 mile at Chandler KCHD.

Check out these aerial photos of a massive dust storm crossing Phoenix, AZ. #haboob #duststorm #azwx Photos: @geraldferguson pic.twitter.com/cpJdNfkL2W

— Chopperguy (@chopperguyhd) August 3, 2018

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Animations of GOES-16 (GOES-East) Low-level (7.3 µm), Mid-level (6.9 µm) and Upper-level (6.2 µm) Water Vapor images (above) showed features moving eastward across Nunavut in northern Canada on 01 August 2018. These images covered the far northern portion of the GOES-16 Full Disk view in AWIPS, and depicted frontal wave disturbances within the polar jet stream over that region.

Due to the large satellite viewing angle or “zenith angle”, the 2 km water vapor image pixel dimension (at satellite sub-point) increased to around 6.4 km or 4 miles (below).

Another effect of the large satellite view angle was a shift of the Water Vapor weighting functions to higher altitudes — plots of the 7.3 µm, 6.9 µm and 6.2 µm weighting functions calculated using 12 UTC rawinsonde data from Baker Lake, Nunavut are shown below. These plots depict the layers of the atmosphere from which emitted radiation was detected by each of the 3 Water Vapor spectral bands on the ABI instrument.

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

A comparison of GOES-15 (GOES-West), GOES-17 and GOES-16 (GOES-East) Visible images (above) showed thunderstorms which produced tornadoes, large hail and damaging winds (SPC storm reports) from southeastern Wyoming to eastern Colorado on 29 July 2018. The images are displayed in the native projections of each satellite; images from GOES 16/17 are at 5-minute intervals, while those from GOES-15 are at intervals ranging from 4 to 30 minutes (depending on the operational scan schedule for that GOES-West satellite).

The first infrared images (NOAA/NESDIS News) from GOES-17 (below) also showed the development of these severe thunderstorms. The coldest cloud-top Infrared Window (11.2 µm) brightness temperatures over eastern Colorado were around -70ºC (dark black enhancement) after about 2200 UTC.

Images from all 16 spectral bands of the GOES-17 ABI are shown below. Prior to the development of convective storms, mountain waves could be seen over Wyoming and Colorado on Water Vapor bands 8 (6.17 µm), 9 (6.93 µm) and 10 (7.34 µm).

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1-minute Mesoscale Domain Sector GOES-16 (GOES-East) “Red” Visible (0.64 µm) images (above) showed the development of a supercell thunderstorm that produced tornadoes, large hail and damaging winds (SPC storm reports) across parts of eastern Wyoming on 28 July 2018. A distinct above-anvil cirrus plume could be seen with this storm.

The corresponding GOES-16 “Clean” Infrared Window (10.3 µm) images (below) revealed that the dominant northern storm began to exhibit a well-defined enhanced-V signature (2051 UTC image) about an hour before it began to produce tornadoes. Minimum cloud-top infrared brightness temperatures were in the -60 to -65ºC range (darker shades of red) with the stronger pulses of overshooting tops.

A sequence of Infrared Window images from Suomi VIIRS (11.45 µm) and Aqua MODIS (11.0 µm) (below) showed minimum cloud-top infrared brightness temperatures rapidly cooling from the -40s to -72ºC as the dominant storm crossed Interstate 25.

A comparison of the Terra and Aqua MODIS Total Precipitable Water product (below) indicated that TPW values increased from the 10-20 mm range to the 20-30 mm range in less than 2 hours.

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