Geosphere Night Microphysics RGB imagery on 11 July 2024, below, shows a signal developing over (what was eventually called) the Cow Valley fire in rural eastern Oregon. The new fire developed just north of the Bonita Springs fire and to the west of the Huntington Mutual Aid fire. A consistent signal is apparent by 1100 UTC. According to the National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC), the fire was first reported at 1310 UTC, two hours later.

GOES-18 imagery from the Geosphere site, below, shows the growth of the smoke pall from the fire. In addition, the bright white reflectance within the smoke suggests occasional development of pyrocumulus clouds.

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The image below, from the Watch Duty app, shows the fire perimeter on the evening of 11 July, and also two adjacent fires (Bonita Road to the southwest and Huntington Mutual Aid to the east, both of which can be viewed in the satellite imagery above; Bonita Road is also apparent in imagery below)

The initial Next Generation Fire System (NGFS) detection of this event was at 1111 UTC on 11 July, as shown below. This animation shows how a signal flickered in the area for about 30 minutes before the fire pixels were identified by the NGFS.

Once fire pixels have been identified, it is possible (by clicking on a pixel) to probe, as shown below, to determine what kind of fuel is available, and to determine how much urban area is present. The pixels are mostly vegetation, and do not include a Wilderness-Urban interface (WUI).

NUCAPS profiles, in this case from Metop-C, shown below, give information that might help a Incident Meteorologist. In particular, near-dry adiabatic lapse rates in the mid-troposphere might help anticipate the pyrocumulus behavior observed, using either the gridded NUCAPS shown just below, or the individual profiles shown beneath that.

As of 18z on 12 July, this fire has closed US Route 26 in eastern Oregon, from milepost 254 to 231. Forecasts for this area come from the NWS forecast office in Pendleton. The CIMSS Next Generation Fire System website is here. A more recent fire perimeter mapping, below, from the Watch Duty App, valid around 20 UTC on 12 July, shows the significant expansion of the fire.

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Oregon has seen triple-digit (^o Fahrenheit) heat in early July 2024. (Here are records for 9 July) The animation below shows GOES-18 Land Surface Temperatures on 9 July. This hourly level-2 product is created in clear skies. It shows warmest values between 2100 and 2200 UTC on 9 July 2024. Land Surface Temperature imagery is available online at this NOAA website.

GOES-18 Band 7 imagery, below, also presented hourly instead of at its normal 5-minute cadence for the GOES-18 PACUS domain, shows a similar evolution of temperatures. The surface temperatures become just as warm as two fires, one in northern California (the Shelley Fire) and one east of Medford (the Salt Creek Fire).

Relief from the heat over western Oregon is shown in the gridded NUCAPS 850-mb temperature field shown below. In contrast to the values around 20^oC (in yellow) over eastern Oregon at 0530 UTC on 10 July, values closer to 10^oC (in cyan) are over the Pacific Ocean. That cooler airmass will help to temper the heat over western Oregon, but heat on will continue in eastern Oregon.

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The National Weather Service Offices in Portland, Medford and Pendleton have more information on this event.

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The above wiki image is credited to : “Mark Wade 2003 (text) NASA/GSFC/METI/ERSDAC/JAROS, and U.S./Japan ASTER Science Team 2006-09-01 (photo) Borrow-188 and Soumya-8974 (compilation) – This file was derived from: CCAFS.jpg.

All the GOES launches have been from Cape Canaveral (FL), but the launch pads used have varied over the decades. Included in the table below are select other historical rocket launches.

Rocket	Launch Date	Pad	Comments/Earth-viewing Instruments
Explorer I	31 January 1958	26	First American Satellite
Explorer 7X	16 July 1959	5	Launch failure – Carried Heat Budget sensor
Explorer 7	13 October 1959	5	First monitoring Earth (Heat Budget)
ATS-1	7 December 1966	12	Spin-Scan Cloud Camera
ATS-3	5 November 1967	12	Multi-color Spin-Scan Cloud Camera
SMS-A (SMS-1)	17 May 1974	17	VISSR
SMS-B (SMS-2)	6 February 1975	17
GOES-A (GOES-1)	16 October 1975	17A	Also known as SMS-C
GOES-B (GOES-2)	16 June 1977	17B
GOES-C (GOES-3)	16 June 1978	17B
GOES-D (GOES-4)	9 September 1980	17A	VAS
GOES-E (GOES-5)	22 May 1981	17A
GOES-F (GOES-6)	28 April 1983	17A
GOES-G (-)	3 May 1986		Launch failure
GOES-H (GOES-7)	26 February 1987	17A
GOES-I (GOES-8)	13 April 1994	36B	Imager and Sounder
GOES-J (GOES-9)	23 May 1995	36B
GOES-K (GOES-10)	25 April 1997	36B
GOES-L (GOES-11)	3 May 2000	36A
GOES-M (GOES-12)	23 July 2001	36A
GOES-N (GOES-13)	24 May 2006	37B
GOES-O (GOES-14)	27 June 2009	37B
GOES-P (GOES-15)	4 March 2010	37B
GOES-Q (-)	–		Spacecraft option not exercised
GOES-R (GOES-16)	19 November 2016	41	ABI, GLM, SUVI, etc.
GOES-S (GOES-17)	1 March 2018	41
GOES-T (GOES-18)	1 March 2022	41
GOES-U (GOES-19)	25 June 2024	39A
GeoXO	TBD	TBD	TBD

The instrument spectral response functions (SRF) for many of the list GEOs are posted on this UW/CIMSS calibration site.

H/T

Thanks to all who make the satellite imagery possible, NOAA, NASA, vendors, contractors and Cooperative Institute folks. T. Schmit works for NOAA/NESDIS/STAR and is stationed in Madison, WI.

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Hurricane Beryl made a (final) landfall along the Texas Gulf Coast, near Matagorda TX, at about 4 AM CDT/0900 UTC on 8 July. VIIRS imagery, above, from the SSEC/CIMSS Direct Broadcast antenna, shows infrared (I05, 11.45 µm) imagery and Day Night Band visible (0.7 µm) imagery around the time of landfall. It is noteworthy that city lights are unable to penetrate the thick clouds (some of the reduction in light intensity might be due to power outages, as shown below from this source).

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GOES-16 Clean Window imagery overlain with GLM Flash Extent Density, below, shows the evolution of the storm from 0651 UTC through 1321 UTC on 8 July. Subsequent to landfall, the satellite presentation of the storm degrades, as expected. Heavy Rains and Storm Surge along the coast will remain threats through the day on the 8th.

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For the last hours of her time over the western Gulf of Mexico, Beryl was in a very favorable environment for strengthening. Shear values (source, shown below) were low and SSTs were very warm. Prior to this time, strengthening of Beryl was in part limited by a lack of an inner core, as shown in this microwave (36.5 and 89.0 GHz) toggle from 1916 UTC on 7 July, taken from the direct broadcast site at AOML; unfortunately, the 8 July 2024 morning passes of GCOM did not sample Beryl.

For the latest information on Beryl, refer to the National Hurricane Center and to local National Weather Service offices: Corpus Christi, Houston/Galveston, Lake Charles, Dallas/Fort Worth and Shreveport.

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