GOES-14, in SRSO-R mode, animation, above (YouTube video), captured the development of an isolated cell over northeastern Andrews County in west Texas. Intersecting boundaries helped force the isolated convection, above, that was strong enough to produce a signal in the NOAA/CIMSS ProbSevere product, with ProbSevere peaking at around 15%.

View only this post Read Less

Thunderstorms began to develop across West Texas during the afternoon hours on 19 May 2015, along and ahead of an eastward-moving dryline. One of the storms went on to produce a few brief tornadoes, and hail as large as 3.0 inches in diameter (SPC storm reports). Different views of this storm were provided by GOES-15 (GOES-West), GOES-14 (in SRSO-R mode), and GOES-13 (GOES-East) 0.62 µm visible channel images (above; click image to play 190 MB animated GIF; also available as an MP4 movie file, or on YouTube). This comparison highlights the advantages of 1-minute interval Super Rapid Scan images (which will be available from GOES-R) compared to the standard 15-minute interval Routine Scan images provided by the current generation of GOES.

One interesting feature seen on the visible channel images above was the apparent merger of the large dominant dryline storm and a smaller northward-moving storm that had formed in Mexico (radar animation). In GOES-13 10.7 µm IR imagery with an overlay of SPC storm reports (below; click image to play animation), one report of 2.0-inch diameter hail was seen around or shortly after the time of the storm merger.

With higher spatial resolution IR imagery from MODIS (1-km), VIIRS (375-meter), and AVHRR (1-km), much colder cloud-top IR brightness temperatures were seen (below) compared to the corresponding 4-km resolution GOES IR imagery at those times — especially during the early formative stages of the thunderstorms captured with MODIS and VIIRS. The coldest cloud-top IR brightness temperature on the 2128 UTC AVHHRR image was -80º C, compared to -67º C on the 2130 UTC GOES image.

A more detailed discussion of this event can be found on the RAMMB GOES-R Proving Ground Blog.

View only this post Read Less

GOES-14 is producing imagery at 1-minute intervals as part of Super-Rapid Scan Operations for GOES-R (SRSO-R). Sectors that are scanned change each day and are determined by likely weather events. The animation above, in the southwest corner of the Monday May 18 sector shows strong convection over northern Louisiana. (A similar animation in mp4 format is available here (YouTube)) A benefit of 1-minute imagery is that it can capture the entire lifecycle of overshooting tops, cloud-top features that typically form and decay in less than 10 minutes.

GOES-R is scheduled to launch in March 2016. It will have the capability to provide routine 1-minute imagery over mesoscale-sized domains such as those sampled in the next three weeks by GOES-14. Real-time GOES-14 SRSO imagery is available through the SSEC RealEarth web map server and the GOES-14 SRSOR Imagery site.

Rapid Scan Operations allow the eye to distinguish between upper- and lower-level clouds that typically move at different speeds or in different directions. In the animation below (similar mp4 available here), high clouds over western Pennsylvania are moving over dissipating river fog in the central part of the state. Upper level clouds over southern New York are moving southward; low clouds are moving westward behind a back-door cold front: winds at White Plains, Newark, Trenton (and other stations) have all switched to easterly.

Another feature of interest was a thin layer of lake fog that was streaming northward across Lake Michigan during the morning hours, as seen in the animation below (also available as an mp4 movie file). Note the appearance of an undular bore propagating southeastward through the northern portion of the fog at the end of the animation; this may have been caused by an internal reflection of the strong southerly flow impinging upon the rugged southern coastline of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. According to buoy data and the Terra MODIS Sea Surface Temperature product, Lake Michigan waters were still in the upper 30s to low 40s F — it was the pre-cold-frontal southerly flow of much warmer air with dew point values in the 50s and 60s F that led to the formation of the lake fog.

Rounds of deep convection persisted over parts of the Gulf Coast states during the day, which can be seen in the sunrise-to-sunset animation of GOES-14 visible images below (also available as an MP4 movie file). In Louisiana, some of these storms produced heavy rainfall and flash flooding, with a few water rescues necessary.

View only this post Read Less

An elongated north-to-south oriented atmospheric bore was observed on GOES-15 (GOES-West), GOES-14, and GOES-13 (GOES-East) 6.5 µm water vapor channel images (above; click to play animation; also available as an MP4 movie file) on the morning of 16 May 2015. This bore feature was located in the area where strong westerly to southwesterly mid-tropospheric winds were impinging upon a consolidating dryline — this dryline later moved eastward and acted as the focus for severe thunderstorms across Texas (SPC storm reports). GOES-14 had been activated to perform Super Rapid Scan Operations for GOES-R (SRSOR) duties beginning on 18 May.

Note that there were no parallel cloud rolls present on the corresponding GOES-15/14/13 0.63 µm visible channel imagery (below) — so this gravity wave bore feature was forming in clear air.

A comparison of 12 UTC El Paso, Texas (yellow) and Midland, Texas (cyan) rawinsonde data (below) showed the differences in vertical moisture profile to the west and to the east of the bore feature — especially in the 500-600 hPa layer, where a good deal of the signal contributing to the overall water vapor brightness temperature was originating from.

View only this post Read Less