MIMIC Total Precipitable Water product with track of Tropical Cyclone Nadine (click image to play QuickTime movie)

A sequence of MIMIC Total Precipitable Water product images at 3-hour intervals from 12 UTC on 07 September 2012 to 00 UTC on 04 October 2012 (above) shows the track of long-lived Tropical Cyclone Nadine as it meandered across the Atlantic Ocean. In the final (88th) advisory issued for Nadine by the National Hurricane Center, they stated:

PENDING A POST-STORM ANALYSIS…NADINE WILL TIE GINGER OF 1971 AS THE SECOND-LONGEST-LASTING ATLANTIC TROPICAL STORM ON RECORD AT 21.25 DAYS. AS A TROPICAL CYCLONE…WHICH INCLUDES THE TROPICAL DEPRESSION STAGE…IT IS THE FIFTH-LONGEST-LASTING TROPICAL CYCLONE ON RECORD IN THE BASIN…AT 21.75 DAYS.

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GOES-14 3.9 µm shortwave IR images (click to play animation)

Numerous wildfires began to burn across parts of northeastern North Dakota, northwestern Minnesota, and southeastern Manitoba during the afternoon hours on 02 October 2012. Strong south to southwest winds in advance of an approaching cold front were gusting into the 35-45 mph range, helping many of these fires to grow rather quickly. 4-km resolution GOES-14 3.9 µm shortwave IR images (above; click image to play animation) showed the appearance of several prominent “hot spots” (red to yellow to black color enhancement) associated with the larger fires.

A sequence of 1-km resolution MODIS 3.7 µm shortwave IR images (below) showed the increase in size of some of the larger fire hot spots during the day as the cold front approached.

MODIS 3.7 µm shortwave IR images

Two comparisons of 4-km resolution GOES-14 3.9 µm shortwave IR images with their corresponding 1-km resolution MODIS 3.7 µm shortwave IR images (below) demonstrated the advantage of higher spatial resolution for not only detecting some of the smaller fires, but for also more accurately locating the hot spots associated with the fires themselves. For example, mandatory evacuations were ordered for parts of the town of Karlstad in far northwestern Minnesota (located about 20 miles southeast of Hallock, station identifier KHCO), due to a large fire along the Kittson and Marshall county line. The MODIS images correctly dislayed the hot spot of this fire along that particular county line, placing it just south of Karlstad.

GOES-14 3.9 µm and MODIS 3.7 µm shortwave IR images

GOES-14 3.9 µm and MODIS 3.7 µm shortwave IR images

During the subsequent overnight hours, the fire located north of Upper Red Lake and Lower Red Lake in northwestern Minnesota continued to grow very rapidly, and produced an unusually long smoke plume that was quite evident on Suomi NPP VIIRS 0.7 µm Day/Night Band (DNB) images at 07:33 UTC (2:33 AM local time) and 09:14 UTC (4:14 AM local time) as it drifted northeastward over southern Ontario (below). Illumination from the nearly full (waning gibbous phase, 87% full) Harvest Moon allowed the smoke plume and surrounding cloud features to be easily seen at night.

Suomi NPP VIIRS 0.7 µm Day/Night Band images

Comparisons of the Suomi NPPP VIIRS 0.7 µm Day/Night Band images with their corresponding 3.74 µm shortwave IR images at those two times (below) showed the large fire hot spots (yellow to red to black color enhancement) on the shortwave IR imagery along with the brightly glowing signature of the fire on the DNB imagery.

Suomi NPP VIIRS 0.7 µm Day’Night Band and 3.74 µm shortwave IR images

Suomi NPP VIIRS 0.7 µm Day/Night Band and 3.74 µm shortwave IR images

Since smoke is essentially transparent to longwave InfraRed (IR) thermal radiation, comparisons of the Suomi NPP VIIRS 0.7 µm Day/Night Band images with their corresponding 11.45 µm IR images (below) showed that there was no discernable signature of the smoke plume on the IR imagery.

Suomi NPP VIIRS 0.7 µm Day/Night Band and 11.45 µm IR images

Suomi NPP VIIRS 0.7 µm Day/Night Band and 11/45 µm IR images

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MODIS true-color Red/Green/Blue (RGB) image

A spectacular display of autumn tree colors can be seen on 30 September 2012 across parts of northeastern Minnesota, northern Wisconsin, and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan in this 250-meter resolution Aqua MODIS true-color Red/Green/Blue (RGB) image from the SSEC MODIS Today site (above).

===== 02 October Update =====

Two days later, another view of the autumn tree foliage colors was provided by a Terra MODIS true-color RGB image from the SSEC MODIS Direct Broadcast site (below).

MODIS true-color Red/Green/Blue (RGB) image

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GOES-14 0.63 µm visible channel images (click to play animation)

Deep moisture and an unstable atmosphere were in place across the island of Puerto Rico on 27 September 2012, creating an environment favorable for the development of strong thunderstorms during the afternoon hours (in response to sea breeze convergence and local terrain effects). 1-km resolution GOES-14 0.63 µm visible channel images (above; click image to play animation) and 4-km resolution GOES-14 10.7 µm IR channel images (below; click image to play animation) showed the development of large thunderstorms which produced very heavy rainfall (as much as 3-4 inches within a 1-2 hour period) which caused flooding problems.

Due to the fact that the the radar at San Juan, Puerto Rico had suffered an outage, the National Weather Service forecast Office in Miami, Florida was called upon to perform back-up duties during the outage (which included the issuance of Area Forecast Discussions and Flood Advisories). To obtain more frequent satellite images during the radar outage, Miami also called for GOES-14 to be placed into Rapid Scan Operations (RSO) — but unfortunately the default CONUS RSO scan sector was used, which did not extend far enough eastward to cover Puerto Rico. Just 3 days earlier, GOES-14 had been activated to replace GOES-13 as the operational GOES-East satellite (since GOES-13 instrument problems caused it to go into standby mode on 23 September)

GOES-14 10.7 µm IR channel images (click to play animation)

A closer view using 374-meter resolution Suomi NPP VIIRS 0.65 µm visible channel and 11.45 µm IR channel images (below) showed the strongest thunderstorm located over the southwestern portion of the island at 17:27 UTC. The coldest cloud top IR brightness temperature on the VIIRS images was -83º C (compared to -65º C around that same time on GOES-14 IR imagery).

Suomi NPP VIIRS 0.65 µm visible channel and 11.45 µm IR channel images

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