Today marks the 40-year anniversary of the powerful Great Lakes storm that was responsible for the sinking of the SS Edmund Fitzgerald (which occurred on 10 November 1975). The image composites (above, courtesy of Jean Phillips, Schwerdtfeger Library) were constructed from daytime and nighttime overpasses of the NOAA-4 polar-orbiting satellite, and show the large cloud shield of the storm moving northeastward from the Great Lakes into eastern Canada during the 10-11 November 1975 period. The rapidly-intensifying nature of the midlatitude cyclone can seen by comparing the 12 UTC surface analyses on 09 November and 10 November.

Since the first operational geostationary weather satellites (SMS-1 and SMS-2) were relatively new back in 1975, the CIMSS Regional Assimilation System (CRAS) model was utilized to generate synthetic Infrared (IR) satellite images to provide a general idea of what the satellite imagery might have looked like for this intense storm. The 48-hour sequence of synthetic CRAS IR images (below) shows the evolution of the model-derived cloud features at 1-hour intervals.

Additional information about the Edmund Fitzgerald storm can be found at this website, as well as the NWS Marquette site and this journal article.

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A strong storm of similar character developed over the Upper Midwest and Great Lakes region on 9-11 November 1998. GOES-8 (GOES-East) Infrared (10.7 µm) and Water Vapor (6.7 µm) images of this 1998 storm are shown below (and are also available as YouTube videos). This storm set all-time minimum barometric pressure records for the state of Minnesota, with 962 mb (28.43″) recorded at Albert Lea and Austin in southern Minnesota. On the cold side of the storm, up to 12.5 inches of snow fell at Sioux Falls in southeastern South Dakota. Wind gusts were as high as 64 mph in Minnesota and 94 mph in Wisconsin.

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GOES-13 Visible Imagery, above, shows Tropical Storm Kate northeast of the Bahamas late in the day on 9 November. The storm is over a region of warm sea surface temperatures, below (imagery from the CIMSS Tropical Weather Site), in an environment of low shear. RapidScat winds show winds between 35 and 40 knots to the northeast of the storm center. The projected path is also shown, paralleling the East Coast before moving out to sea. The path takes the storm north of Bermuda as well.

Suomi NPP viewed the storm as well, shortly after noon on 9 November. The Visible (0.64 µm), near-infrared (1.61 µm) and 11.35 µm imagery are shown below. The 1.61 imagery shows darker returns over ice clouds because of absorption at that wavelength. The extensive cirrus shield over Kate’s convection (and along the East Coast is association with frontal system) is readily apparent. Water-based clouds, in contrast, are bright white in both the visible and near-infrared channels.

ASCAT winds from 0230 UTC on 10 November (below) also show strongest winds on the northern and eastern sides of the storm.

Kate was upgraded to a minimal Hurricane at 0900 UTC on 11 November.

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The Mount Rinjani volcano in Indonesia began a period of eruptions on 25 October 2015; the ash plume became very apparent on Suomi NPP VIIRS true-color Red/Green/Blue (RGB) images from RealEarth on 03 and 04 October (above). The volcanic ash disrupted flights at Denpasar Airport in Bali (the red dot at the southern tip of the island) for several days.

A GOES-R volcanic ash height product (derived using Himawari-8 AHI data) from the SSEC Volcanic Cloud Monitoring site indicated that the plume reached heights of 10 km (dark blue color enhancement) at times during the 03-04 October period (below).

McIDAS-V images of Suomi NPP VIIRS Day/Night Band (0.7 µm), near-IR (1.6 µm), shortwave IR (3.74 µm), and IR (11.45 µm) images (below, courtesy of William Straka, SSEC) showed the hot spot and nighttime glow of the summit of the Rinjani volcano at 1733 UTC on 04 November.

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A GOES-13 Visible (0.63 µm) image (above) showed a bank of fog and low stratus (FLS) covering much of the western portion of Lake Superior at 1600 UTC on 03 November 2015. Overlays of Metop ASCAT and Real-Time Mesoscale Analysis (RTMA) surface winds showed the long fetch of northeasterly winds that were moving this FLS feature toward the southwest; this southwestward (and eventual inland) advection could be followed on GOES-13 Visible images (below).

A more detailed view of the FLS deck was provided by a 375-meter resolution Suomi NPP VIIRS Visible (0.64 µm) image at 1848 UTC, with overlays of METAR surface reports, RTMA surface winds, and surface frontal analysis (below).

The GOES-R Low Cloud Thickness product shown below (derived using GOES-13 data) indicated that the maximum depth of the FLS feature was around 2200 feet (yellow color enhancement).

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