Cyclone Debbie formed in the Coral Sea on 22 March 2017, and eventually intensified to a Category 3 storm (ADT | SATCON) as it moved southward toward Australia. Himawari-8 Visible (0.64 µm) and Infrared Window (10.4 µm) images (above) showed the eye of Debbie as it was making landfall in Queensland, near Prosperpine (YBPN).

The Landsat-8 satellite made an overpass of the eye at 2358 UTC (above), as a large convective burst had developed within the northern semicircle of the eyewall (which was also evident in the corresponding Himawari-8 Visible and Infrared Window images viewed using RealEarth).

Debbie was undergoing an eyewall replacement cycle as the storm center approached the coast — this was evident in Microwave (85 GHz) images from GMI at 1425 (above) and SSMIS at 2017 UTC (below) from the CIMSS Tropical Cyclones site.

The MIMIC Total Precipitable Water product (below; also available as an MP4 animation) showed copious tropical moisture associated with Cyclone Debbie, which led to rainfall accumulations as high as 780 mm (30.7 inches) — with rainfall rates up to 200 mm (7.9 inches) per hour — and record flooding along the coast from Brisbane to Lismore.

 

 

 

View only this post Read Less

** The GOES-16 data posted on this page are preliminary, non-operational data and are undergoing testing. **

As noted on the Satellite Liaison Blog, an outbreak of severe thunderstorms developed over parts of Oklahoma and Texas on 26 March 2017. A GOES-16 Mesoscale Sector positioned over that region provided 1-minute data — and 0.5-km resolution Visible (0.64 µm) images (above; also available as a 114-Mbyte animated GIF) showed the formation of storms that produced hail (as large as 3.25 inches in diameter, at 0043 UTC) and one tornado (at 0018 UTC) in eastern Oklahoma during the 2000 to 0045 UTC time period. SPC storm reports are plotted in red — their locations have been parallax-corrected, assuming a cloud top height of 11 km. Both of the aforementioned large hail and tornado events occurred  during the 30-minute gap in operational GOES-13 (GOES-East)  imagery from 0015 to 0045 UTC, when that satellite was executing New Day Schedule Transition and Southern Hemisphere scan duties.

View only this post Read Less

The Kambalny volcano in far southern Kamchatka, Russia erupted around 2120 UTC on 24 March 2017. A Himawari-8 “Target Sector” was positioned over that region — providing rapid-scan (2.5-minute interval) imagery — as seen in a 2-panel comparison of AHI Visible (0.64 µm) and Infrared Window (10.4 µm) data covering the first 7 hours of the eruption (above). Ash plume infrared brightness temperatures quickly became -40ºC and colder (bright green enhancement).

Himawari-8 false-color Red/Green/Blue (RGB) images from the NOAA/CIMSS Volcanic Cloud Monitoring site (above) showed the ash plume drifting south-southwestward during the subsequent nighttime hours. It is interesting to note the formation and subsequent northwestward motion of numerous contrails (darker green linear features) across the region, due to the close proximity of a major Tokyo flight corridor.

True-color RGB images from Terra MODIS, Suomi NPP VIIRS and Aqua MODIS, viewed using RealEarth (below) revealed the long ash plume during the late morning and early afternoon on 25 March. The dark signature of ash fall onto the snow-covered terrain was evident on the Terra and Aqua images, just west of the high-altitude ash plume.

26 March Update: a closer view of Terra MODIS true-color images from 25 and 26 March (below) showed that the perimeter of the darker gray surface ash fall signature had fanned out in both the west and east directions.

View only this post Read Less

GOES-16 data posted on this page are preliminary, non-operational data that are undergoing testing.

The visible animation from late afternoon over west Texas, above, shows a characteristic signature of a shroud of dust around El Paso, TX behind a dryline associated with a developing cyclone in the lee of the Rocky Mountains. This pall of dust was visible in many of the 16 channels on the Advanced Baseline Imager (ABI) that sits on GOES-16. The toggle below cycles through the Red visible (0.64 µm), the Blue visible (0.47 µm), the Cirrus channel (1.38 µm), the Snow/ice channel (1.61 µm) and the Upper-Level and Lower-Level water vapor channels (6.19 µm and 7.34 µm, respectively) (Click here for a faster image toggle). In  addition, a 2-panel comparison of GOES-16 Visible and Cirrus band imagery is available here.

Several aspects of the toggle above bear comment. Note that the blue channel (0.47 µm) has in general a ‘hazier’ appearance than the 0.64 µm red channel. Atmospheric scattering is more important at shorter wavelengths, and that is picked up by the satellite. The 1.38 µm ‘Cirrus’ Channel generally does not see the surface because of water vapor absorption at that wavelength. However, the atmosphere behind the dry line is sufficiently parched (total Precipitable Water in the El Paso sounding on 0000 UTC 24 March is less than 6 mm; sounding from this site) that complete attenuation by water vapor is not occurring; dust is highly reflective at 1.38 µm and a signal becomes apparent in the dry air from west Texas southwestward into central Mexico.

Thin dust is very difficult to detect in the 1.61 µm snow/ice channel because solar energy at that wavelength reflected from the surface moves unimpeded through thin dust; thus you can generally see the surface in dusty regions in the 1.61 µm channel. On this date the 1.61 µm channel nimbly discriminated between water clouds (over central Mexico) and ice clouds (over much of the rest of the domain, as shown in this toggle between 0.64 µm and 1.61 µm : only the clouds composed of water are reflective (white) in both channels.

The atmosphere was sufficiently dry on this date that the lower-level (7.34 µm) water vapor channel detected surface features (horizontal convective rolls) associated with the blowing dust. (click here for the 6.19 µm image; surface features are not so apparent). Weighting functions computed at those wavelengths show a significant contribution from the surface at 7.4 µm (the red line), and also at 7.0 µm, (the green line), so the mid-level water vapor imagery from GOES-16 likely also shows surface influences); the 6.5 µm weighting function (the blue line) does not extend to the surface (These GOES-13 Sounder Weighting Functions that are similar to those from the GOES-16 ABI are from this site) so it’s unlikely that the 6.19 µm imagery shows surface features.

The GOES-R Website has fact sheets on the 0.47 µm, 0.64 µm, 1.38 µm, 1.61 µm, 6.19 µm and 7.34 µm channels.

Added: The RAMSDIS GOES-16 Loop of the Day from 23 March showed the Dust RGB product.

View only this post Read Less