GOES-12 visible images

GOES-12 visible images (above) revealed the northward propagation of an large convective outflow boundary across the Bay of Campeche (in the far southwestern Gulf of Mexico) on 02 July 2009. A larger-scale GOES-12 visible image (below) showed that at one point this outflow occupied an area approximately the size of the state of Wisconsin!

GOES-12 visible image

An overpass of the QuikSCAT satellite provided SeaWinds near-surface wind data (below) which showed that there was southeasterly flow across much of the Bay of Campeche region, but the wind speeds increased from about 10-15 knots ahead of the outflow boundary to 15-25 knots behind the outflow boundary (the winds at Buoy 42055 gusted to 21 knots around 12 UTC). The QuikSCAT wind vectors showing speeds of 34-50 knots (yellow to red colors) were not valid, due to rain flags greater than 90%. The air temperature and dew point values barely budged with the passage of this outflow boundary, due in part to the very warm (84º F or 29º C) water temperature.

GOES-12 visible + GOES-12 IR + QuikSCAT winds

AWIPS images of the Blended Total Precipitable Water (TWP) product (below) suggest that the TPW dropped from about 57 mm (2.24 inches, red color enhancement) to around 46 mm (1.81 inches, yellow color enhancement) in the wake of this outflow boundary.

Blended Total Precipitable Water product

View only this post Read Less

Meteosat-9 visible image

A Meteosat-9 visible image at 18:00 UTC (above) showed the presence of a great deal of airborne Saharan dust over the North Atlantic Ocean on 30 June 2009. Due to a favorable forward scattering angle, this dust appeared as a large “hazy” feature between Africa and South America. Also note the well-defined “comma cloud” signature of a strong mid-latitude cyclone off the southeastern coast of South America.

The Meteosat-9 Saharan Air Layer (SAL) tracking product from the CIMSS Tropical Cyclones site (below) displayed a strong signal (darker red colors) of this latest pulse of thick dust beginning to move westward off the coast of western Africa on 30 June.

Meteosat-9 Saharan Air Layer product

This pulse of dust was also apparent on Meteosat-9 Red/Green/Blue (RGB) aerosol tracking product images (below), showing up as a brighter pink feature to the north of a large Mesoscale Convective System that was moving westward across western Africa during the 28-30 June period.

Meteosat-9 RGB aerosol tracking images

After the initial pulse of Saharan dust was seen to move off the west coast of Africa around the end of June, another strong pulse of blowing sand/dust (the brighter pink features) was seen to develop inland over northwestern Africa (across parts of Algeria, Niger, and Mali) during the 01-02 July period (below), with some of this dust reaching the coast on 02 July.

Meteosat-9 RGB aerosol tracking product images

View only this post Read Less

Meteosat-7 IR images

Yemenia Airways Flight 626 departed from Sana in Yemen and crashed after an aborted landing attempt at Moroni in the Comoros Islands off the east coast of Africa on 29 June 2009. Meteosat-7 11.5 µm IR images (above) showed that there was a strong southerly flow over the region on that day, in the wake of a cold frontal passage. Meteosat-7 IR cloud drift winds from the CIMSS Tropical Cyclones site (below) showed that winds were generally in the 20-30 knot range over the region at the time of the crash.

Meteosat-7 IR cloud-tracked winds

These wind speeds are consistent with the surface METAR reports at Moroni Hahaya International Airport:

FMCH 292200Z 18022G33KT 9999 FEW020 24/17 Q1018 NOSIG=
FMCH 292300Z 21025G35KT 9999 FEW020 25/16 Q1017 TEMPO 18015G30KT=
FMCH 300000Z 21025G35KT 9999 FEW020 25/17 Q1016 TEMPO 19014KT=

Moroni Hahaya International Airport surface meteorogram

For additional information, see Yemenia Flight 626: A detailed meteorological analysis by Tim Vasquez.

View only this post Read Less

GOES-12 visible images

The GOES-O satellite was launched at 22:51 UTC on 27 June 2009 from Cape Canaveral, Florida (station identifier XMR). GOES-12 visible images (above) showed a portion of the rocket plume on the 23:02 UTC image (some ground-based photos of the launch are available here).

This satellite will become GOES-14 after the hand-off from NASA to NOAA, and will then undergo a Post Launch Test (PLT) during the July-December 2009 period — the first GOES-14 visible images should be made available on 27 July, with the first InfraRed images available in mid-August. CIMSS has calculated the weighting functions for the GOES-14 imager and sounder channels as well as the spectral response functions and Planck function constants for GOES-O…and CIMSS will also contribute to the NOAA Science Test portion of the PLT in November/December 2009.

View only this post Read Less