250-meter resolution MODIS true color and false color images (centered near Marquette, Michigan)

250-meter resolution MODIS true color and false color Red/Green/Blue (RGB) images from the SSEC MODIS Today site showed that significant snow cover remained in parts of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan (above) and also in parts of northeastern Wisconsin (below) on 09 April 2010. Snow cover appears white on the true color images, but cyan on the false color images.

Total snowfall amounts from the 07-08 April 2010 storm were as high as 10.2 inches near Marquette, Michigan and 5.8 inches at Green Bay, Wisconsin. On the morning of 09 April, the snow depth that still remained on the ground included 8 inches at Marquette in Michigan and 5 inches near Green Bay in Wisconsin. The 5.8 inches that fell at Green Bay was the 9th greatest snowfall on record for the month of April.

250-meter resolution MODIS true color and false color images (centered near Green Bay, Wisconsin)

MODIS false color RGB images — created using AWIPS images of the MODIS 0.65 µm visible and 2.1 µm near-IR “snow/ice detection” channels — revealed how quickly the snow cover (which appeared as darker shades of red) was melting during the short amount of time between the 17:10 UTC and 18:54 UTC images (below). Patches of cirrus cloud moving eastward across the northern part of the images (as well as portions of the supercooled water droplet cloud deck that was beginning to glaciate to the east) took on a light pink shade in the RGB images. This particular image example offers a glimpse at the type of RGB image capability that should be available with the upcoming AWIPS II software.

Similar near-IR “snow/ice detection” channels will be available on the ABI instrument aboard the GOES-R satellite (scheduled for launch in 2015).

MODIS false color RGB images (17:10 UTC and 18:54 UTC)

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GOES 3.9 µm, MODIS 3.7 µm, and POES AVHRR 3.8 µm shortwave IR images

AWIPS images of the 4-km resolution GOES-12 3.9 µm, the 1-km resolution MODIS 3.7 µm, and the 1-km resolution POES AVHRR 3.8 µm shortwave IR images (above; click image to enlarge) showed that there were a large number of fire “hot spots” (red to yellow colors) across parts of Kansas and Oklahoma on 08 April 2010. The majority of these fires appeared  to be in the Flint Hills region — likely the annual prescribed burns that cattle farmers perform in order to remove thatch and weeds that compete with the native grasses, to improve the range land grasses for livestock grazing.

===== 09 April Update =====

On the following day, MODIS true color imagery (below, viewed using Google Earth) showed that the ongoing fire activity was beginning to create extensive areas of smoke aloft from northern Oklahoma to eastern Kansas. There were also some large and very dense smoke plumes seen farther to the east, over portions of Arkansas and Missouri.

MODIS true color imagery (visualized using Google Earth)

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First official GOES-15 Sounder visible image (click to enlarge)

The first official GOES-15 Sounder visible image (above) became available starting at 17:30 UTC on 08 April 2010. For more details on the first GOES-15 Imager instrument visible images, see the CIMSS Satellite blog, the SSEC Spotlight, and the NOAA News pages. GOES-15 (GOES-P) is the final spacecraft in the GOES N/O/P series.

The GOES-15 will go through its post launch science test during the Summer of 2010 — the first IR images from the GOES-15 sounder are expected in late April of 2010.

Sounder images and products from the other GOES satellites can be found at the CIMSS GOES Realtime Derived Products site.

First and second GOES-15 Sounder visible images

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GOES-15: first full disk visible image (click image to enlarge)

The first official GOES-15 full disk visible image (above) became available at 17:33 UTC on 06 April 2010. For more details, see the SSEC Spotlight and the NOAA News pages. GOES-15 (GOES-P) is the final spacecraft in the GOES N/O/P series — the next quantum leap in GOES satellite capabilities will come with the launch of GOES-R in 2015. GOES-R will include the improved 16-channel Advanced Baseline Imager (ABI).

The GOES-15 satellite will go through its post launch science test during the Summer of 2010.

A few close-up views from this GOES-15 full disk visible image (plus some comparisons between the 17:33 UTC image and the following 18:02 UTC image) are shown below:

Northern Hudson Bay and the Canadian Arctic Archipelago (showing some areas of ice-free water)

Frozen Lake Winnipeg in southern Manitoba, Canada

Cumulus development along a cold front in eastern Kansas

Within a few hours, the cumulus clouds seen forming along the cold front in eastern Kansas (above) developed into severe thunderstorms that produced hail up to 1.75 inch in diameter and wind gusts to 70 mph.

San Francisco Bay and the snow-covered Sierra Nevada mountains

Smoke plumes from small fires burning in the Florida panhandle region

The small fires producing smoke plumes seen in the Florida panhandle region (above) were but 3 of a large number of fires burning across the Southeast US on 06 April, according to the CIMSS Wildfire-ABBA product and the NOAA Hazards Mapping System product.

Smoke drifting northward across the southern Gulf of Mexico

Stratocumulus deck over the Rio Grande Valley region, with cirrus drifting overhead

Saharan dust blowing westward over the tropical Atlantic Ocean

Fingers of fog reaching into the valleys along the western slopes of the Andes in Chile

The center of a large cyclone in the South Pacific Ocean

Perhaps the most striking feature on the GOES-15 full disk visible image was the rather large cloud swirl associated with a cyclone located over the far southern portion of the South Pacific Ocean, west of the southern tip of South America (surface analysis). While it was large in size, it did not have access to a significant amount of moisture, as indicated by the MIMIC Total Precipitable Water product. A GOES-15 visible image close-up view of the center of the cyclone (above) showed the occluded front spiraling inward toward the center of the storm’s circulation.

GOES-11, GOES-15, GOES-13, and GOES-12 visible images (White Sands, NM)

Comparisons of visible images from GOES-11 (GOES-West), GOES-15, GOES-13, and GOES-12 (GOES-East) are shown for the White Sands, New Mexico area (above) and also for clouds with embedded convection producing precipitation over northern Iowa (below).

GOES-11, GOES-13, GOES-15, and GOES-12 visible images (northern Iowa)

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