Strong moisture-laden storms caused abundant precipitation and severe weather over the Pacific Northwest from 13-15 October 2016. The animation above shows two storms making landfall in the Pacific Northwest, one on 13-14 October and a second, on 15 October, which was a storm that originated from the remnants of Typhoon Songda. On 11-12 October, Super Typhoon Songda was recurving, subsequently racing towards the west coast of the United States, and making landfall as a strengthening extratropical cyclone on 15 October. The animation above uses two different satellites (COMS-1 and GOES-15), and includes a seam between the two views because the spectral characteristics of the two infrared window bands are not identical.

Daily precipitation from the Advanced Hydrologic Prediction Center from 13-15 October is shown here, with a weekly total shown below. A large area of precipitation exceeding 6 inches is apparent in the higher terrain.

The precipitation amounts were aided by the very moist airmass that accompanied the storms. Total Precipitable Water, shown below, from this site that manipulates data from here, shows the moisture. A larger-scale view that traces the moisture back to the time when Songda first reached typhoon intensity over the West Pacific is available here.

The strong storm before the one spawned by the remnants of Songda produced an EF2-rated tornado in Manzanita Oregon (YouTube Compilation; SPC Storm Reports; Blog post with damage picture) on 14 October 2016. GOES-15 Visible Imagery, below, shows a storm with overshooting tops moving over northwestern Oregon at the time of the tornado. (GOES-15 was performing a full-disk scan from 15:00-15:26 UTC, so 15-imagery was not available as the tornado moved ashore; the Advanced Baseline Imager on GOES-R will produce CONUS Imagery every 5 minutes in addition to Full-Disk Imagery every 15 minutes). The overshoots are especially apparent in the 1500 and 1530 UTC Images. GOES-13 provided a visible image at about the time of the tornado touchdown, but at a very oblique angle. The cirrus shield of the thunderstorm anvil is apparent, however.

GOES-15 Infrared Window (10.7 µm) imagery around the time of the severe weather in Oregon, below — which includes locations of SPC storm reports of tornadoes (red) and damaging winds (cyan) — also showed evidence of cold overshooting tops (the coldest clouds tops were around -50º C, yellow enhancement). An infrared image animation showing only the clouds is available here. NOAA-18 flew over the Oregon coast at 1427 UTC, and the AVHRR 12 µm Infrared image showed the parent thunderstorm offshore, upstream of Manzanita (larger-scale view).

The Portland, Oregon NWS office issued 10 tornado warnings on 14 October — a record number for a single day.

 

We had never issued more than 3 tornado warnings in one day (Oct ’98) (1986-2015) We issued 10 today. #pdxtst

— NWS Portland (@NWSPortland) October 14, 2016

GOES Sounder data can be used to created Derived Product Imagery (DPI) estimates of instability parameters (for example), and many are shown at this site. The GOES-13 Sounder has been offline for about a year after having suffered an anomaly back in November 2015, when the filter wheel became frozen, but the GOES-15 Sounder (and the GOES-14 Sounder) continue to operate. The animation below of GOES-15 Sounder Lifted Index shows values as low as -4ºC upstream of the Oregon Coast for many hours before the tornado; as such, it was a valuable situational awareness tool.

NOAA/CIMSS ProbSevere is a probabilistic estimate that a given thunderstorm will produce severe weather in the next 60 minutes. The animation below shows ProbSevere polygons overlain over radar from 1501 UTC (when the first ProbSevere polygon appeared around the radar cell that ultimately was tornadic) through 1521 UTC. Values from the ProbSevere output are below:

 

TIME	PS	CAPE	SHR	MESH	GRW	GLA	FLSHRATE	COMMENTS
1501	11%	1048	39.3	0.00	str	str	0 fl/min	Satellite from 1245/1241
1503	32%	1056	39.7	0.37	str	str	0 fl/min	Satellite from 1245/1241
1505	32%	1031	39.4	0.37	str	str	0 fl/min	Satellite from 1245/1241
1507	29%	1013	38.7	0.37	str	str	3 fl/min	Satellite from 1245/1241
1509	47%	974	37.9	0.62	str	str	3 fl/min	Satellite from 1245/1241
1511	47%	962	37.6	0.62	str	str	3 fl/min	Satellite from 1245/1241
1513	32%	745	33.1	0.52	str	str	10 fl/min	Satellite from 1245/1241
1515	34%	897	35.9	0.52	str	str	1 fl/min	Satellite from 1245/1241
1517	10%	887	35.7	0.52	N/A	N/A	2 fl/min
1519	8%	762	33.6	0.54	N/A	N/A	4 fl/min
1521	7%	737	33.1	0.49	N/A	N/A	2 fl/min

The Sounder also has a 9.6 µm “ozone absorption band”, and another example of GOES Sounder DPI is Total Column Ozone, shown below. Immediately evident is the sharp gradient in ozone (yellow to green color enhancement) located just north of the polar jet axis that was rounding the base of a large upper-level low (500 hPa analyses). The GOES-R ABI instrument also has a 9.6 µm band that is sensitive to ozone; however, there are no current plans to produce operationally a similar Total Column Ozone product.

 

Suomi NPP overflew the Pacific Northwest about 4 hours before the severe weather was observed at Manzanita. The Day/Night Visible Image above, courtesy of Jorel Torres at CIRA (Jorel also supplied the NUCAPS Sounding Imagery below), shows a well-developed storm offshore with thunderstorms off the West Coast of the United States (Click here for an image without the Green Arrow). Multiple overshooting tops can be discerned in the imagery.

NUCAPS Soundings are produced from the Cross-Track Infrared Sounder (CrIS, with 1300+ channels of information) and the Advanced Technology Microwave Sounder (ATMS, with 22 channels) that are present on Suomi NPP (in addition to the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) instrument that provides the Day/Night band imagery). The image below shows the location of NUCAPS Soundings — the color coding of the points is such that Green points have passed Quality Control, whereas yellow points denote sounding for which the Infrared Sounding retrieval has failed to converge and Red points denote soundings for which both Infrared and Microwave sounding retrievals have failed to converge).

NUCAPS Soundings can give valuable information at times other than those associated with radiosonde launches (0000 and 1200 UTC, typically), and over a broad region. The point highlighted above, between the occluded storm and the coast, shows very steep mid-level lapse rates that suggest convective development is likely.

The imagery below shows soundings a bit farther south, near convection that looks supercellular. The NUCAPS Soundings there suggest very steep mid-level lapse rates.

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From its inception as a highly-sheared Tropical Storm on 04 October, Nicole moved in an erratic path with small intensity fluctuations for 8 days (above); then a period of intensification began on 12 October, with the storm reaching Category 4 intensity southwest of Bermuda at 03 UTC on 13 October. With ample illumination from the Moon (which was in the Waxing Gibbous phase, at 90% of full) Nicole exhibited a well-defined eye on Suomi NPP VIIRS Day/Night Band (0.7 µm) imagery at 0615 UTC, with cold cloud-top temperatures surrounding the eye on the corresponding VIIRS Infrared Window (11.45 µm) image (below).

As Nicole approached Bermuda, increasing deep-layer wind shear began to impact the storm and weaken it to a Category 3 — and DMSP-17 Microwave (85 GHz) data showed that the eye had become open to the south (below).

The passage of Nicole over Bermuda is shown on GOES-13 Visible (0.63 µm) and Infrared Window (10.7 µm) images spanning the period 1037-1555 UTC (below).

As the eye of Nicole passed over Bermuda around 13 UTC, the staff at the Bermuda Weather Service were able to successfully launch a rawinsonde balloon, which reported data as high as the 202 hPa pressure level or 12.2 km altitude — much higher than their previous launch attempts at 06 and 12 UTC (below). The Total Precipitable Water (TPW) value derived from that 15 UTC sounding was 72.5 mm or 2.85 inches, which was in general agreement with that displayed by the MIMIC TPW product. Note that the eye of Nicole did not appear to be directly over Bermuda on the 1300 UTC GOES-13 images — this is due to a combination of parallax and the fact that the eye had a significant southwest-to-northeast tilt with height.

A sequence of Infrared images from POES and Metop AVHRR (12.0 µm) and Terra MODIS (11.0 µm) during the period 1016 to 1513 UTC is shown below.

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Copious amounts of moisture associated with Hurricane Matthew resulted in heavy rainfall (map | text list) and widespread flooding across the Southeast and Mid-Atlantic US during the 07 October to 09 October 2016 period. Hourly images of the MIMIC Total Precipitable Water (TPW) product (above; also available as a 22 Mbyte animated GIF) showed the high TPW values that spread from Florida to the Mid-Atlantic states; all-time record high TPW values were measured via rawinsonde at Jacksonville, Florida and Charleston, South Carolina, with a record high value for the month of October at Newport/Cape Hatteras, North Carolina (Tweet). For more details, see the Weather Underground blog.

Matthew set numerous records for intensity, longevity, and landfall (summary) — an animation of hourly GOES-13 Water Vapor (6.5 µm) images covering the 11-day period from 12 UTC on 28 September to 12 UTC on 09 October is shown below (also available as a large 113 Mbyte animated GIF). The CIMSS Tropical Cyclones site posted GOES-13 Visible (0.63 µm) animations from the individual days of 03 October, 04 October, 05 October, 06 October, 07 October, and 08 October.

The combination of high winds and flooding led to widespread power outages, with over 2 million homes and businesses without power. A comparison of nighttime Suomi NPP VIIRS Day/Night Band (0.7 µm) images from 28 September (before Mattthew arrived) and 09/10 October (after the passage of Matthew) showed a notable reduction in the glow of city lights in areas with no power (below; images courtesy of William Straka, SSEC). Note that the presence of patchy clouds on all 3 images tended to diffuse or even obscure the appearance of city lights below, depending on the thickness of the cloud layer(s).

As clouds cleared in the wake of Hurricane Matthew on 09 October, a Suomi NPP VIIRS true-color Red/Green/Blue (RGB) image at 1859 UTC, viewed using RealEarth (below), revealed patterns of turbidity in the offshore waters of the Atlantic Ocean from Florida to North Carolina; this increased turbidity was a result of high amounts of particles suspended in the water due to a combination of mixing from prolonged high winds and runoff from inland flooding.

About 8 hours later, a Terra MODIS Sea Surface Temperature (SST) product image at 0243 UTC on 10 October (below) showed a large eddy of warm Gulf Stream water (with a maximum SST value of 85.2º F, darker red color enhancement) surrounding a pocket of cooler water (with a minimum SST value of 78.5º F, darker blue color enhancement) off the coast of South Carolina.

The VIIRS Instrument on Suomi NPP provides data that are used in a River Flood Product (discussed previously on this blog). The product uses three reflective bands (I01, I02, and I03 at 0.64 µm, 0.86 µm and 1.61 µm, respectively) and the infrared window band I05 at 11.45 µm. The image below (courtesy of Sanmei Li at George Mason University) identifies many flooded regions over North Carolina. In particular, the flooding near Goldsboro and Lumberton is identified.

A sequence of 1 pre-Matthew (06 September) and 3 post-Matthew (09, 10 and 12 October) Terra/Aqua MODIS false-color RGB images from the SSEC MODIS Today site (below) also helped to highlight areas of flooding (darker shades of blue, especially notable along river valleys) that resulted from the heavy rainfall.

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Hurricane Matthew is on a path that parallels the coast of Florida, with the center remaining just offshore. GOES-13 Visible imagery from a 1-hour time period this morning, above, shows the continued development of convection around the eyewall and the motion of convective bands inland. GOES-13 Visible images with hourly surface winds and wind gusts (in knots) are shown below. The highest wind gust recorded along the central Florida coast was 107 mph (NWS Melbourne PNS).

A 24-hour animation of morphed Microwave imagery (from this site), below, suggests that an eyewall replacement cycle has completed: the very small eye present at storm’s center at the start of the animation has been replaced by a larger-diameter eye at the end of the animation. Storm strength typically drops during eyewall replacements. Note also that the microwave data shows that the strongest convection remained offshore.

Infrared imagery from GOES-13, below, also shows the coldest cloud tops to the east of the eye (indicated by the arrow in the image).

A longer animation of GOES-13 Infrared Window (10.7 um) images with hourly surface winds and wind gusts (in knots) is shown below (MP4 | animated GIF).

A toggle between Suomi NPP VIIRS Visible (0.64 um) and Infrared Window (11.45 um) images at 1751 UTC is shown below; Matthew was a Category 3 hurricane at that time.

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