A waterspout developed over Humboldt Bay Thursday, January 25th around 4:40 pm and moved through the Woodley Island Marina, dissipating only a minute or so later. Security cameras captured the waterspout moving through the marina onto the island. https://t.co/EIgAPN2BTE

— NWS Eureka (@NWSEureka) January 27, 2018

A waterspout moved inland near the NWS Eureka forecast office during the late afternoon hours on 25 January 2018. The brief tornado caused some EF-0 damage (interestingly, it was the only report of severe weather in the US that day, and the first tornado in the Eureka forecast area since 1998).

A comparison of GOES-16 (GOES-East) “Red” Visible (0.64 µm) and “Clean” Infrared Window (10.3 µm) images (below) showed the line of convection as it moved across the area (Eureka and the location of the 0040-0041 UTC tornado are a few miles south-southwest of the airport KACV) — the coldest cloud-top infrared brightness temperatures on the 0037 UTC and 0042 UTC GOES-16 images were -30.7ºC (dark blue color enhancement). Note: there were no western US images available from GOES-15 (GOES-West) between 0030 and 0100 UTC, due to a routine “New Day Schedule Transition” and a 0051 UTC Southern Hemisphere scan.

There was an overpass of the NOAA-19 satellite about 2 hours prior to the Eureka tornado, at 2251 UTC. If we compare the NOAA-19 Visible (0.63 µm) image to the corresponding GOES-16 Visible (0.64 µm) image (below), a parallax shift to the west is evident with GOES-16 (which was scanning that same scene only 24 seconds later than NOAA-19: 22:52:23 UTC vs 22:51:59 UTC).

In the corresponding Infrared Window images from NOAA-19 (10.8 µm) and GOES-16 (10.3 µm) (below), the parallax shift was also apparent — and the coldest cloud-top infrared brightness temperatures associated with the convection just northwest of KACV were -36.2ºC and -35.2ºC, respectively. Given the very high viewing angle for GOES-16 (about 67 degrees over Eureka), the qualitative and quantitative satellite presentation compared quite favorably to that seen from the more direct overpass of NOAA-19.

As mentioned in the afternoon Area Forecast Discussion, offshore Sea Surface Temperature (SST) values were in the 50-55ºF range; this was also seen in a comparison of the nighttime and daytime MODIS SST product (below). With the presence of cold air aloft and relatively warm water at the surface, the lower troposphere was unstable enough to support the development and growth of showers and thunderstorms.

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A large mid-latitude cyclone intensified over the central US on 22 January 2018, producing a wide variety of weather — in the cold sector, heavy snow and blizzard conditions across the Plains and Upper Midwest (WPC storm summary), and in the warm sector, severe weather (tornadoes, large hail and damaging winds: SPC storm reports) from Mississippi to Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio. GOES-16 (GOES-East) Mid-level Water Vapor (6.9 µm) images (above) showed the large size of the storm circulation, which included a well-defined Warm Conveyor Belt (WCB) and a Trough of Warm Air Aloft (TROWAL) as identified here. More information on conveyor belts and TROWALs is available here.

A GOES-16 Mesoscale Sector provided 1-minute imagery over the Upper Midwest — “Red” Visible (0.64 µm) images (below) revealed some of the convective elements surrounding the surface low as it reached its occluded stage over Iowa. A small cluster of thunderstorms also developed over central Illinois around 19 UTC, producing 1.0-inch diameter hail.

Taking a  closer look at the eastern portion of the previous satellite scene, there was an overlap between the M1 and M2 Mesoscale Sectors — this allowed for images at 30-second intervals (below).

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Visible GOES-16 Satellite Imagery over the northeastern Gulf of Mexico on 22 January 2018 showed the development of a Rope Cloud. Such features have been discussed before on the CIMSS Blog — here, here, here and here! Rope Clouds are handy features in satellite analysis over the ocean because they indicate distinctly where the surface cold front exists. Note that the WPC surface analysis, shown here for 1500 UTC, has the front in the same location as the rope cloud, with convection noted out in advance of the surface cold front. The hourly animation below, showing surface observations and the GOES-16 Red Visible (0.64 µm) Imagery, confirms the windshifts that were observed when the Rope Cloud/Cold Front passed any station.

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The first in a renewed series of eruptions of the Mayon Volcano in the Philippines began around 0450 UTC on 22 January 2018. As seen in Himawari-8 False-color Red-Green-Blue (RGB) images from the NOAA/CIMSS Volcanic Cloud Monitoring site (above), the ash cloud was transported to the northwest.

Multi-spectral retrievals of the Ash Cloud Height (below) indicated that the ash reached altitudes of at least 10 km (dark blue).

A plot of rawinsonde data from nearby Legaspi at 00 UTC on 22 January (below) indicated that the 10 km altitude corresponded to a pressure of 285 hPa.

A Suomi NPP VIIRS True-color RGB image from RealEarth (below) revealed some of the lower-altitude ash (shades of tan to brown) drifting toward the west at the satellite overpass time of 0507 UTC. Thermal anomalies — signatures of hot lava flows — are indicated by red dots.

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