GOES-13 Infrared Window (10.7 µm) images (above) showed a large Mesoscale Convective System (MCS) that developed in far eastern New Mexico after 2000 UTC on 11 June 2016, then moved eastward and eventually southward over West Texas during the nighttime hours on 12 June. The MCS produced wind gusts to 75 mph and hail of 1.00 inch in diameter in Texas (SPC storm reports).

Suomi NPP VIIRS Infrared Window (11.45 µm) and Day/Night Band (0.7 µm) images at 0801 UTC or 3:01 am local time (above) showed cloud-top infrared brightness temperatures were as cold as -83º C (violet color enhancement), along with a number of bright streaks on the Day/Night Band image due to cloud illumination by intense lightning activity (there were around 5000 cloud-to-ground lightning strikes associated with this MCS). On the infrared image, note the presence of cloud-top gravity waves propagating outward away from the core of overshooting tops.

This MCS produced heavy rainfall, with as much as 3.44 inches reported near Lomax (NWS Midland TX rainfall map | PNS). An animation of radar reflectivity (below, courtesy of Brian Curran, NWS Midland) showed the strong convective cells moving southward (before the Midland radar was struck by lightning and temporarily rendered out of service).

During the subsequent daytime hours, GOES-13 Visible (0.63 µm) images (below) revealed the presence of a large and well-defined Mesoscale Convective Vortex (MCV) as the cirrus canopy from the decaying MCS eroded. A fantastic explanation of this MCV was included in the afternoon forecast discussion from NWS Dallas/Fort Worth. New thunderstorms were seen to develop over North Texas during the late afternoon and early evening hours as the MCV approached — there were isolated reports of hail and damaging winds with this new convection (SPC storm reports). Initiation of this new convection may have also been aided by convergence of the MCV with a convective outflow boundary moving southward from Oklahoma.

A sequence of Visible images from POES AVHRR (0.86 µm), Terra MODIS (0.65 µm), and Suomi NPP VIIRS (0.64 µm) (below) showed snapshots of the MCV at various times during the day.

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GOES-13 (GOES-East) Visible (0.63 µm) and Infrared Window (10.7 µm) images (above) showed that a cluster of thunderstorms began to develop in far southeastern Saskatchewan around 20 UTC on 09 May 2016, which quickly grew into a large supercell thunderstorm that moved across southwestern Manitoba. This thunderstorm exhibited overshooting tops and a prominent anvil-top plume in the visible images, along with a well-defined “enhanced-V” storm top signature in the Infrared imagery. The minimum cloud-top infrared brightness temperature was -66º C at 2230 UTC.

A higher resolution view was provided by POES AVHRR Visible (0.86 µm) and Infrared (12.0 µm) imagery at 2332 UTC (below) — details of the overshooting top, anvil plume, and enhanced-V signature showed up very well in the 1-km resolution images.

Although the storm produced a funnel cloud (prompting the issuance of Canada’s first tornado warning of 2016):

?? "Canada's first tornado warning of 2016" by @weathernetworkhttps://t.co/38B8AblCwB

— The Weather Network (@weathernetwork) June 10, 2016

no tornado was confirmed. There were reports of golfball-size hail at Lauder (located just northeast of Melita, Manitoba CWEI) and wind gusts to 96 km/hour or 56 knots at Killarney (located east of Melita).

POES AVHRR CLAVR-x Cloud Top Temperature and Cloud Top Height products (below) indicated minimum values of -76º C and maximum values of 13 km, respectively.

A surface frontal analysis (below) showed that the thunderstorms formed in the broad warm sector of a large occluded low pressure system centered in Saskatchewan, with a secondary low moving eastward across northern  North Dakota — the RTMA surface wind field depicted the broad southerly flow of warm, moist air into Manitoba ahead of the storms (in addition to an interesting area of strong southwesterly flow into the rear flank of the storm).

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A large wildfire had been burning for several days from late May into early June 2016 (VIIRS fire detection hot spots) near the west coast of the Kamchatka Peninsula of Russia. On 07 June, Himawari-8 Visible (0.64 µm) images (above) showed smoke from the wildfire which became entrained within the clockwise circulation of a weak area of low pressure (surface analyses) just off the coast over the Sea of Okhotsk. Beneath the smoke aloft, a swirl of low-level stratus cloud associated with this low was also very apparent. Other features of interest seen in the 0.5 km resolution 10-minute imagery include the intermittent formation of standing wave clouds over the high terrain (east of the fire), and small ice floes drifting westward just off the coast of Magadan Oblast (northwest of the fire).

A closer view using Himawari-8 Visible (0.64 µm) and Shortwave Infrared (3.9 µm) images (below) revealed numerous hot spots (dark black to yellow to red pixels) around the periphery of the burn scar of the large fire, along with the brief development of small pyrocumulus clouds over some of the larger, more active fires. Note that the ABI instrument on GOES-R will provide similar imagery at high spatial (0.5 km visible, 2 km infrared) and temporal (5 minute Full Disk coverage) resolutions.

A Suomi NPP VIIRS true-color Red/Green/Blue (RGB) image viewed using RealEarth (below) provided a high-resolution view of the fire region and the plume of smoke curving around the low pressure feature.

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The 2016 Atlantic Tropical Season’s third named storm has formed in the Gulf of Mexico just north of the Yucatan Peninsula; Colin became the earliest named “C” storm on record for that basin. MIMIC Total Precipitable Water values for the 72 hours ending at 2300 UTC on 5 June 2016, above, show the storm embedded within a deep band of tropical moisture that has surged northward from the Monsoon Trough / Intertropical Convergence Zone into the northwestern Caribbean and southern Gulf of Mexico (MIMIC TPW + surface analyses). Moisture extends northeastward along the projected path of the storm into northern Florida. Extensive rains are likely over the Southeast US as the storm moves north. Total Precipitable Water (TPW) from MIMIC is a simple band difference between two microwave channels; that difference is invalid over land where emissivity is highly variable. However, MIRS data can estimate TPW over land and water, and its distribution over the eastern United States, below, derived from a morphed animation of the observations, gives a better indication of the spread of rich moisture over the southeastern United States. In addition, the Blended TPW Product showed values in excess of 70 mm (2.76 inches) over the Gulf of Mexico, which were in excess of 170% of Normal.

Colin was poised to moved over a region of higher Ocean Heat Content that was located in the eastern Gulf of Mexico, which could help to fuel additional bursts of deep convection similar to that seen on POES AVHRR infrared imagery, below. For more information on Tropical Storm Colin, refer to the CIMSS Tropical Cyclones site and the National Hurricane Center.

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