Check out the transverse banding from WI to TN ahead of the shortwave! Plenty of #turbulence pireps to go along! #aviationweather VIS loop from @CODMeteorology pic.twitter.com/YVyxwYJ6Wz

— Jeremy Smith (@WX_Overlord) June 2, 2018

GOES-16 (GOES-East) Near-Infrared “Cirrus” (1.37 µm), Mid-level Water Vapor (6.9 µm) and Upper-level Water Vapor (6.2 µm) images (below) showed the evolution of this transverse banding — a cloud signature often associated with turbulence — early in the day on 02 June 2018.

A toggle between 1-km resolution Aqua MODIS Water Vapor (6.7 µm) and Cirrus (1.37 µm) images at 1842 UTC is shown below; the transverse banding was beginning to dissipate around that time.

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GOES-16 (GOES-East) “Red” Visible (0.64 µm) and “Clean” Infrared Window (10.3 µm) images (above) showed thunderstorms that produced severe weather (SPC storm reports | NWS Rapid City) across parts of Wyoming, Montana and South Dakota on 01 June 2018. The SPC storm reports on the imagery are “parallax-corrected”, such that they are plotted at a location matching the corresponding cloud-top features (applying the 11-km tropopause height from the 12 UTC Rapid City rawinsonde report).

GOES-16 Mid-level (6.9 µm) images (below) revealed a shortwave trough that was moving eastward across the northern Rocky Mountains, enhancing forcing for ascent as it approached the region of developing convection.

EF3 tornado confirmed in Wyoming yesterday. This is the fourth EF3 of the year. Still at record lows season to date for F/EF3+ tornadoes. h/t @BianchiWeather pic.twitter.com/Lfs0uwf4F2

— U.S. Tornadoes (@USTornadoes) June 3, 2018

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GOES-16 Visible Imagery on 1 June revealed an interesting feature behind a lake-enhanced cold front that swept south into Indiana and Illinois (another aspect of this feature is discussed here). Atmospheric waves developed in the cloud layer over the south shore of Lake Michigan and propagated upwind towards Chicago. The mp4 animation above (Click here for a full-res very large animated gif) shows 1-minute imagery from the western default GOES-16 Mesoscale sector. (At 1659 UTC, that sector was repositioned to the west to monitor convection in the northern Plain States).

CONUS-scale imagery was able to sample the evolution of this system at 5-minute intervals, as shown below (Click here for an animation without the surface observations).

There is a considerable thermal gradient between the lake surface and the land over Indiana and Illinois. This Land Surface Baseline Product shows surface temperatures in the low 40s over the Lake and surface temperatures in the mid-80s over northwest Indiana. This strong thermal gradient likely influenced the development of these unusual waves. An aircraft sounding from 1535 UTC (here, courtesy TJ Turnage) shows the very strong inversion that was also important in the evolution of the waves.

(Thanks to TJ Turnage, NWS GRR for alerting us to this event!)

Added, 5 June:  Clark Evans, UW-Milwaukee, hypothesizes that the waves may have been forced by the (relatively) tall dunes in Indiana along the south shore of Lake Michigan.   Those dunes may have been tall enough to block the flow under a very sharp inversion.

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The toggle above shows the 3.9 µm brightness temperature over New Mexico at 0332 UTC on 1 June and the GOES-16 Fire Temperature Derived Product. Two areas of fires are apparent, one in the Gila National Forest in southwestern New Mexico, and one in northeast New Mexico (The Ute Park fire), in a region of extreme drought (Linked image from the US Drought Monitor).

At night, as above, the location of a smoke plume can be difficult to discern. Real Earth now includes (under the ‘Fires’ folder) tiles of the HRRR Surface Smoke Forecast, as shown below in 1-hour time increments between 0600 and 1200 UTC on 1 June.

The excellent temporal resolution of GOES-16 allows for close monitoring of fires. The Ute Park fire is shown below in 3.9 µm imagery, and its evolution during the night is apparent.

During the day, visible imagery is available to track smoke plumes. The “Blue Band” visible imagery, below (0.47 µm), from GOES-16 suggests the smoke plume from the Ute fire extends into Kansas.

More information on the Ute Park fire is here and here.

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