GOES-16 “Clean” Infrared Window (10.3 µm) images centered over Lake Erie (above) showed the evolution of lake effect snow bands on 25 December – 26 December 2017, which produced very heavy snowfall at locations such as Erie, Pennsylvania (station identifier KERI); a Mesoscale Sector provided images at 1-minute intervals. Some noteworthy snowfall records were set at Erie PA:

With an additional 3.5″ of snow at the Erie, PA airport as of 5PM, this brings the two day (12/25-26) total up to 58″ and the storm total (From 7PM Christmas Eve thru 5PM 12/26) up to 60.0″. Heavy snow continues to fall. Here is a look at some of the records. #pawx pic.twitter.com/BN5txOpByZ

— NWS Cleveland (@NWSCLE) December 26, 2017

(27 December Update: additional lake effect snow at Erie on 27 December brought the final storm total accumulation to 65.1 inches: NWS Cleveland summary. NOHRSC plots showed a maximum snow depth of 49 inches just southwest of downtown Erie; the maximum snow depth at Erie International Airport was 28 inches on 26 December, which was still less than their all-time record snow depth of 39 inches on 21 December 1989)

A sequence of Infrared Window images captured by Terra/Aqua MODIS (11.0 µm) and Suomi NPP VIIRS (11.45 µm) is shown below. The coldest cloud-top infrared brightness temperatures associated with the dominant lake effect snow bands were in the -30 to -35 ºC range (dark blue to pale green color enhancement), similar to what was seen in the GOES-16 Infrared Window imagery.

Farther to the northeast, these Lake Erie lake effect bands also produced significant snowfall in far southwestern New York, with 32 inches reported at Perrysburg (located 20 miles west of Dunkirk, station identifier KDKK). In addition, lake effect snow bands over Lake Ontario were responsible for even higher snowfall amounts:

Updated storm total snowfall for:
Perrysburg off of Lake Erie = 32.0″
8 N Redfield off of Lake Ontario = 56.9″ pic.twitter.com/3cngvFZRR7

— NWS Buffalo (@NWSBUFFALO) December 26, 2017

1-minute GOES-16 “Red” Visible (0.64 µm) images (below) showed the lake effect snow bands over Lake Ontario on 26 December.

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GOES-16 “Red” Visible (0.64 µm), Near-Infrared “Snow/Ice” (1.61 µm) and Shortwave Infrared (3.9 µm) images (above) revealed signatures of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launch at 01:27 UTC on 23 December 2017 (5:27 PM Pacific time on 22 December). The arrows on the 01:27:24 UTC images indicate the bright pixels on the 0.64 µm and 1.61 µm images, as well as the warm thermal anomaly (black pixels) on the 3.9 µm image. GOES-16 was scanning that exact location at 01:28:01 UTC.

The GOES-16 Shortwave Infrared signature was noted by a couple of NWS offices:

It looks like #GOESEast (#GOES16) captured the rocket launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base earlier this evening. It shows up as a “hot spot” on the 3.90 micron channel. pic.twitter.com/fstHI89SKv

— NWS La Crosse (@NWSLaCrosse) December 23, 2017

GOES16 Satellite imagery in the 3.9 micron band (infrared) easily detected the lauch of the #SpaceX satellite from Vandenberg AFB. Although imaged at 5 min intervals, GOES16 just happened to image right after launch. Note area orange and yellow west of the coast line. #cawx pic.twitter.com/qxf77jbhGj

— NWS Hanford (@NWSHanford) December 23, 2017

Signatures of another SpaceX rocket launch in Florida were captured by GOES-16 on 16 March 2017.

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A toggle between 250-meter resolution Terra MODIS True-color and False-color Red-Green-Blue (RGB) images from the MODIS Today site (above) revealed numerous aircraft “hole punch” and dissipation trail or “distrail” features over Illinois, Indiana and Ohio on 21 December 2017.  These cloud features were caused by aircraft that were either ascending or descending through a layer of cloud composed of supercooled water droplets — cooling from wake turbulence (reference) and/or particles from the jet engine exhaust acting as ice condensation nuclei causes the small supercooled water droplets to turn into larger ice crystals (many of which then fall from the cloud layer, creating “fall streak holes“). The ice crystal clouds appear as darker shades of cyan on the false-color image.

GOES-16 (GOES-East) “Red” Visible (0.64 µm) and Near-Infrared “Snow/Ice” (1.61 µm) images showed the hole punch and distrail features over Illinois/Indiana (above) and over Indiana/Ohio (below). The glaciated (ice crystal) hole punch and distrail clouds appeared dark gray on the Snow/Ice images (since ice is a strong absorber of radiation at the 1.61 µm wavelength).

RealEarth is used to display Suomi NPP VIIRS Visible (0.64 µm), Shortwave Infrared (3.9 µm), Near-Infrared (1.61 µm), True-color and False-color RGB images at 1841 UTC (below). O ne the Shortwave Infrared images, the hole punch and distrail features are colder (brighter white) than the surrounding supercooled water droplet cloud deck — since water droplet are effective absorbers of incoming solar radiation, such clouds appear warmer (darker gray) in 3.9 µm images.

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The Southern Hemisphere Summer Solstice (and the Northern Hemisphere Winter Solstice) occurred at 1628 UTC on 21 December 2017. A 24-hour animation of GOES-16 Full Disk “Red” Visible (0.64 µm) images ending just after the Solstice time (above) showed that the far southern latitudes remained illuminated during the entire time.

Close-up views of the far Southern Hemisphere portion of the GOES-16 Full Disk are shown using “Red” Visible (0.64 µm) images (above) and Near-Infrared “Snow/Ice” (1.61 µm) images (below). The most prominent feature was the cloud shield of a 960 hPa storm system (surface analysis) moving west of the Antarctic Peninsula and over the Bellingshausen Sea — on the Snow/Ice images, clouds composed of ice crystals appear as darker shades of gray. At the end of each animation, land-fast sea ice can be seen extending northward from the Antarctic coast in the lower left portion of the images (ice appears bright white on the Visible imagery, and dark gray on the Snow/Ice imagery). In the lower center portion of the images, bright sun glint off ice-free water is apparent on 21 December at 0445 and 0500 UTC.

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