A new RGB has been developed to highlight possible Rocket Plumes from the Advanced Baseline Imagers (ABI) imagery. Many Red-Green-Blue (RGB) composite image recipes can be applied to the GOES (Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite) ABI data. Owing to the new spectral bands, finer spatial resolutions and more applications, there are new RGBs to be considered. Many questions should be considered when you develop an RGB: is there an existing RGB that could be used/modified or does a derived product that highlights the feature of interest. Other factors include: spectral bands, band order, bands differences, band ranges, difference ranges, gamma factor, color contrasts, inverting any ranges, etc. The “rocket plume” RGB uses the 3.9, 6.2 and 0.64 (or 1.6 during the night) micrometer bands. A “quick guide” has been generated to summary this RGB. To simplify any operational use, the “daytime” rocket plume RGB can be used both during the day and night. The main use of this RGB is for a quick-look or situational awareness. While most users will not need to develop their own RGB, understanding the process makes it easier for users of existing RGBs to appreciate what an RGB is and is not. Thanks to Bill Line, there’s AWIPS — Advanced Weather Interactive Processing System (xml) code to display this RGB.

Examples (in reverse chronically order)

Test engine burn

The above case was a core stage test rocket burn near Stennis Space Center for a NASA SLS rocket. This was a “test of only the core stage which burns LH2 and LOX making lots of water vapor, and the test remained on the earth surface, and it made a very large low altitude water vapor, which was detected by the visible bands.” Note these NASA TV image1, image2, image3 for an SLS event (in September of 2020). This March case only had 5 minute ABI data and the location did not get as hot as an actual rocket launch. A still image from 20:41 UTC shows a very slight blue hint, from the ABI high resolution visible band.

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SpaceX launch of the Sentinel-6 satellite

The SpaceX launch of the Sentinel-6 satellite in November of 2020 from GOES-17. A still image from 17:19 UTC where both the plume and warming can be observed.

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SpaceX crewed mission

The signature of the SpaceX launch of the Dragon crew mission was clearly visible in the rocket plume RGB. The corresponding still image at 00:29 UTC clearly shows two launch signatures.

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Antares rocket launch from Wallops Flight Facility

Antares rocket launch from Wallops Flight Facility, Virginia and the image from 14:02 UTC.

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Vandenberg

A launch from the Vandenberg on May 22, 2018. Still images at 19:47 and 19:52 UTC.

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GOES-S Launch

A CIMSS Satellite Blog post, plus a still image at 22:05 UTC. Note theese meso-scale sectors were a research request.

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SpaceX

This is a GOES-17 example of a SpaceX launch of Spaceflight SSO-A in late 2018. And a still image from 18:35 UTC.

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Credits

NOAA GOES-16 and -17 ABI data are via the University of Wisconsin-Madison SSEC Satellite Data Services. These images were made using the geo2grid software, developed at the UW/SSEC. More GOES-16 and -17 imagery and other information, including the SIFT software developed at UW/SSEC to quickly test RGB changes. Thanks also to Todd Beltracchi and T. Garner and S. Bachmeier for their expertise.

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Solar radiation at 0.86 µm is strongly absorbed by water on the surface, but reflected by land. There is therefore a big contrast in GOES-16 “Veggie” Band imagery between rivers and adjacent land, and that contrast difference can easily identify regions of inundation. The toggle above compares imagery from 26 February 2018 and from 12 February 2018 over the lower Ohio River Valley. Significant widening of many waterways is apparent in the 0.86 µm imagery on 26 February, especially over southern Indiana, a result of both snow melt and abundant precipitation in the past 7 days, shown below (from this link). This has caused many stream gauges to show Moderate (Red gauges) to Major (Purple Gauges) flooding (image from this link), also shown below.  A zoomed-in image over northern Indiana, at bottom, shows the major flooding along the Kankakee River.

=============== Added, 27 February 2018 ===================Suomi NPP’s Flood Product, produced via CSPP using data from a Direct Broadcast site (at UW-Madison) is shown below. Flooded regions in the lower Ohio River/Mississippi River Valley and surroundings are indicated by shading in yellow to red.

Some of these areas of river flooding could also be seen in a comparison of Suomi NPP VIIRS True-color and False-color Red-Green-Blue RGB images (below) — the False-color image uses the Near-Infrared 2.2 µm and 0.86 µm bands for the Red and Green contributions, and highlights water as shades of blue.

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GOES-16 (GOES-East) Mid-level Water Vapor (6.9 µm) images (above) showed the flow of moisture from the lower Mississippi Valley into the Ohio Valley on 24 February 2018 — this fueled the development of flooding rainfall and severe thunderstorms (for more details, see the Satellite Liaison Blog). A special 21 UTC sounding from Little Rock AR indicated 37.3 mm or 1.47 inches of Total Precipitable Water (TPW) within the atmospheric column.

1-minute interval Mesoscale Sector GOES-16 “Red” Visible (0.64 µm) and “Clean” Infrared Window (10.3 µm) images (below) revealed the development of a small supercell thunderstorm just north of the Kentucky/Tennessee border — this storm produced an EF-2  tornado that was responsible for 1 fatality (NWS Louisville damage survey). This (along with another in Arkansas) was the first US tornado-related death in 283 days (a new record in terms of length), with the last occurring in Wisconsin on 16 May 2017.

Farther to the north, bands of elevated convection (oriented generally west to east) developed across Minnesota and Wisconsin, as seen in GOES-16 Visible (0.64 µm) and Infrared Window (10.3 µm) images (below). Snowfall rates were 1-2 inches per hour at some locations, with many storm total accumulations of 7 to 9 inches. Note the small-scale “ripple structure” that was present along the tops of many of these convective bands (orthogonal to the long axis of each band).

Comparisons of Terra and Aqua MODIS Visible (0.65 µm) and Infrared Window (11.0 µm) images (below) also showed these bands of elevated convection that helped to enhance snowfall rates. The layer of instability aloft was evident on the 00 UTC sounding from Chanhassen MN.

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An explosive eruption of Mount Sinabung began at 0153 UTC on 19 February 2018. Himawari-8 False-color Red-Green-Blue (RGB) images from the NOAA/CIMSS Volcanic Cloud Monitoring site (above) showed the primary plume of high-altitude ash moving northwestward, with ash at lower altitudes spreading out to the south and southeast of the volcano.

Mutli-spectral retrievals of Ash Cloud Height (below) indicated that the explosive eruption injected volcanic ash to altitudes generally within the 12-18 km range, possibly reaching heights of 18-20 km. Advisories issued by the Darwin VAAC listed the ash height at 45,000 feet (13.7 km).

Ash Loading values (below) were also very high within the high-altitude portion of the plume.

The Ash Effective Radius product (below) indicated that very large particles were present in the portion of the plume immediately downwind of the eruption site.

In a comparison of Himawari-8 “Red” Visible (0.64 µm), Shortwave Infrared (3.9 µm) and “Clean” Infrared Window (10.4 µm) images (below), note the very pronounced warm thermal anomaly or “hot spot” (large cluster of red pixels) on the 0150 UTC image — Himawari-8 was actually scanning that location at 01:54:31 UTC, just after the 0153 UTC eruption. Prior to the main eruption (beginning at 0120 UTC), a very narrow volcanic cloud — likely composed primarily of condensed steam — was seen streaming rapidly southward from the volcano summit.

The coldest Himawari-8 cloud-top infrared brightness temperature was -73 ºC at 0300 UTC, which roughly corresponded to an altitude of 15 km on nearby WIMM (Medan) rawinsonde data at 00 UTC (below).

A Terra MODIS True-color RGB image viewed using RealEarth is shown below. The actual time of the Terra satellite overpass was 0410 UTC.

An animation of Himawari-8 True-color RGB images can be seen here.

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