When GOES-16 shifted from its checkout position at 89.5º W Longitude to its position at 75.2º W Longitude (where it will be operational as GOES-East), the domain for the Continental US (CONUS) domain shifted slightly. In ‘Flex Mode‘ (also known as ‘Mode 3‘) of GOES-16 Scanning (and also in the proposed Mode 6), routine CONUS scans occur every 5 minutes. The image above, courtesy Mat Gunshor of CIMSS, shows the GOES-West CONUS scan in green, the GOES-R CONUS scan from the Check-out Location at 89.5º W Longitude in Red, and the GOES-16 CONUS scan domain in blue.

The center point of the CONUS domain, as documented in Table 5.1.2.7-5 from the GOES-R Product Definition and User’s Guide (PUG), shows a shift from 29.24º North Latitude, 91.41º West Longitude (at the check-out location) to 30.08º North Latitude, 87.1º West Longitude (at the operational GOES-East location).  As a result, the entire island of Puerto Rico is now in the CONUS sector, and the northern boundary has shifted farther north into central and western Canada, by about 100 miles.

View only this post Read Less

A comparison of GOES-16 “Red” Visible (0.64 µm), Near-Infrared “Cirrus (1.38 µm) and “Clean” Infrared Window (10.3 µm) images (above) revealed a number of aircraft contrails drifting eastward across Virginia during the morning hours on 18 December 2017. Note how many of the individual contrails were easier to identify and follow in the sequence of 1-minute interval Mesoscale Sector images.

A Cirrus band is also available on the MODIS instrument (aboard Terra and Aqua) as well as the VIIRS instrument (aboard Suomi NPP and NOAA-20) — a toggle between the Terra MODIS Cirrus (1.375 µm),  Infrared Window (11.0 µm) and Visible (0.65 µm) images at 1607 UTC (below) again showed that contrails and other ice crystal cloud features were better highlighted on the Cirrus image.

The 12 UTC rawinsonde profile from Washington Dulles Airport in northern Virginia (below) showed a relatively moist layer in the upper troposphere near the 300 hPa (9.5 km or 31,000 ft) level, which is a common altitude for commercial jets to fly — this likely contributed to the longevity of many of the contrail features.

View only this post Read Less

The Thomas Fire (InciWeb | Wikipedia) began to burn around 0226 UTC on 05 December 2017 (or 6:26 PM Pacific time on 04 December). By 17 December, the fire had burned 270,000 acres — the third largest wildfire on record in California — and caused 1 fatality. An animation of GOES-15 (GOES-West) Shortwave Infrared (3.9 µm) images (above) showed the evolution of the thermal signature (or “hot spots”, as depicted by darker black to yellow to red pixels) during the 0200 UTC 05 December to 0215 UTC 18 December time period. Besides the largest Thomas Fire, other smaller and more short-lived fires could also be seen — especially early in the period, when the Santa Ana winds were strongest (05-07 December blog post). Thick clouds moving over the region later in the period either attenuated or completely masked the thermal signatures, even though the fire was ongoing.

GOES-16 began transmitting imagery (from its GOES-East position at 75.2º W) at 1630 UTC on 14 December — a comparison of GOES-15 and GOES-16 Shortwave Infrared (3.9 µm) during the 14-17 December period (below) showed that in spite of the larger GOES-16 satellite view angle (62.6º, vs 43.2º for GOES-15), the improved spatial resolution (2 km vs 4 km at satellite sub-point) and improved temporal resolution (images every 5 minutes, with no 30-minute gaps due to Full Disk scans) provided a more accurate depiction of the fire trends and intensities.

In a comparison of 250-meter resolution Terra MODIS true-color and false-color Red-Green-Blue (RGB) images (source) at 1853 UTC on 17 December (below), minimal amounts of smoke and a lack of clouds allowed a good view of the large Thomas Fire burn scar (darker shades of reddish-brown) on the false-color image.

During the first full day of the fires on 05 December, a toggle between comparable Aqua MODIS true-color and false-color images (source) revealed very thick smoke plumes drifting southwestward over the adjacent offshore waters of the Pacific Ocean (below).

A toggle between 05 December Aqua MODIS and 17 December Terra MODIS false-color images (below) showed the northward and northwestward growth of the Thomas Fire burn scar.

View only this post Read Less

* GOES-16 data posted on this page are preliminary, non-operational and are undergoing testing *

The GOES-16 satellite finished its eastward drift from the initial check-out position at 89.5º West longitude, arriving at 75.2º West on 11 December 2017 — and should officially be declared the operational GOES-East satellite by 20 December. Shown here are some of the first GOES-16 images that began flowing on 14 December via GOES Rebroadcast (GRB) and the Satellite Broadcast Network (SBN): Full Disk Mid-level Water Vapor (6.9 µm) (above) and “Red” Visible (0.64 µm) (below).  Similar Full Disk animations of Lower-level (7.3 µm) and Upper-level (6.2 µm) Water Vapor images are available here and here.

Taking a closer look at the 15-minute Full Disk Visible imagery (below), smoke from wildfires burning in Southern California could seen moving a considerable distance to the southwest over the Pacific Ocean. Note that the smoke features became brighter toward sunset — this was due to a more favorable forward scattering geometry between the sun, the smoke and the satellite sensors.

Since the atmospheric column over that region of the Pacific was quite dry (as seen in the Water Vapor imagery), the Near-Infrared “Cirrus” (1.37 µm) images (below) were able to display a subtle signature of the smoke features — recall that the strength of the 1.37 µm spectral band is detection of particles that are efficient scatterers of light (such as cirrus ice crystals, volcanic ash, dust and smoke).

The 2 examples below show that GOES-16 CONUS sector coverage and resolution over the western US is still quite good (even with the large satellite viewing angle).

A multi-panel image featuring all 16 spectral bands of the GOES-16 ABI at 1537 UTC is shown below.

Realtime GOES-16 ABI imagery can be found at: https://www.ssec.wisc.edu/data/geo/#/animation?satellite=goes-16 and https://re.ssec.wisc.edu/s/QFMBi.

View only this post Read Less