Typhoon Ampil was at the northern edge of the view of the Direct Broadcast antenna at the forecast office on Guam, and CSPP software processed the above images (courtesy Douglas Schumacher) showing the ample eye of the Typhoon. Microwave imagery suggests an eyewall that is not quite complete, especially on the western side. MIMIC imagery below (from here) suggests an incomplete eyewall as well.

Hourly imagery from 1140 (just after the NOAA-19 overpass shown above) through 1840 UTC show cold cloud tops not quite continuously encircling Ampil’s eye. The GK2A imagery below was created using geo2grid imagery and level-1b GK2A data from KMA.

See the Tokyo Regional Specialized Meteorological Center (RSMC) or the USA’s Joint Typhoon Warning Center for the latest on Ampil. The storm is forecast to make a very close approach to Japan before turning eastward out to sea.

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VIIRS imagery from Suomi NPP and NOAA-20, above, show the structure of Hurricane Ernesto as it pulls away from Puerto Rico. Dry air is entrained within the storm, as evidenced by the regions near the center where convection is absent. Sea-surface temperatures in the region are quite warm, however, and shear is small, as shown below: strengthening is forecast.

Ernesto is tucked within the southeast corner of the GOES-16 CONUS sector field of view. Five-minute GOES-16 Low-Level Water Vapor infrared imagery (Band 10, 7.34 µm) and GLM observations of Flash-Extent Density, below, show very warm brightness temperatures over the Greater Antilles. MIMIC Total Precipitable water fields (at bottom) show dry air there as well. The future intensity of Ernesto will be directly affected by how much of the dry air continues to infiltrate into the storm circulation. Lightning observations at this time were mostly confined to Ernesto’s outer bands.

For the latest information on Ernesto, refer to the National Hurricane Center: https://www.nhc.noaa.gov .

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Tropical Cyclone’s Debby slow progress up the east coast of the US (Blog Post) resulted in a prolonged rain event. The slider above compares the Susquehanna River on 1 August (a clear day before Debby) and on 13 August, after the inundation. The turbidity of the river, and its discharge into Chesapeake Bay increased enough to be obvious to satellite detection.

Data from the USGS Gauge at Harrisburg, below, shows the heavy rain (especially on 9 August), the increase in river height, and the large increase in river flow for the week ending 13 August 2024.

Thanks to Dave Zaff, NWS Eastern Region HSD, for alerting us to this imagery. Imagery for this post was created with Geo2grid.

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Aurora Borealis made a return appearance to the northern United States early in the morning on 12 August. Imagery above from the VIIRS Imagery Viewer, which viewer repackages Direct Broadcast imagery processed at CIMSS with CSPP software, shows the aurora over the eastern USA at 0704 UTC o 12 August as captured by NOAA-21. The image below shows the Aurora at 0843 UTC on 12 August — on NOAA-21’s next pass over the USA. The character of the Aurora has certainly changed in the 90+ minutes!

The Aurora was also present on 13 August, but it did not extend quite so far to the south, being more restricted to northern Canada, as shown below.

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