During periods when the GOES-12 imager is placed into Rapid Scan Operations (RSO) — as was the case on 05 January 2007 to monitor severe convection over the southeastern US — the coverage of the southern 2/3 of the South American continent is limited to only 1 image every 3 hours (when GOES-12 does a full disk scan). The color-enhanced IR window (IRW) image comparison above shows the difference in South American coverage between GOES-12 (in RSO) and GOES-10 (in routine operations) at 20:25/20:28 UTC, and Java animations of GOES-12 and GOES-10 imagery from that day further demonstrate the value of having the GOES-10 satellite positioned at 60º W longitude to support the Earth Observation Partnership of the Americas (EOPA) project. During the GOES-12 RSO period, which began at 18:30 UTC on that day, the entire South American continent was sampled 3-4 times per hour with GOES-10, allowing southern hemisphere meterologists to monitor the widespread convection and other phenomena that were occurring over that continent. The latest GOES-10 sounder and imager products are available on the CIMSS GOES Realtime Derived Products site.

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GOES-11 visible channel imagery from 05 January 2007 (above) revealed some complex wave structures within the various cloud features that were located over the Baja California region (Java animation): (1) a cold front was surging southward across the northern Gulf of California (near the top center of the images), and the broken cloud deck behind the front exhibited some waves; (2) a packet of stationary waves was seen to the lee of Isla de Cedros (“Cedros Island”, located near the center of the images) — mountains on this island rise to elevations of 1205 m (3949 ft), which were high enough to act as a barrier to the prevailing westerly/northwesterly flow on that day; (3) other wave packets were noted both in the stratocumulus clouds over the open waters of the Pacific Ocean, as well as the clouds located inland over parts of Baja California.

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05 January 2007 was the final day of the GOES-13 Post-Launch NOAA Science Test; following the final image at 09:45 UTC (above), the satellite was placed into on-orbit storage until it is needed to replace one of the other operational GOES. This also marked the final opportunity to view the western hemisphere using imagery from 4 different GOES perspectives (below).

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AWIPS MODIS water vapor channel imagery (above) shows a well-defined (but cloud-free) variant of a “Foehn gap” over central Colorado on 04 January 2007. This Foehn gap was oriented roughly north-south, just to the lee of the highest terrain of the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains (below), and formed as 60-70 knot winds at 500 hPa were flowing from west to east over that region (winds at Boulder CO KBJC were westerly at 21 gusting to 37 mph around the time of the MODIS image). A comparison of MODIS and GOES water vapor imagery reveals that, due to parallax error with the GOES-12 image, this Foehn gap incorrectly appears to the west of the highest terrain.  Also evident on the 1-km resolution MODIS water vapor image is a series of mountain waves further downwind of the Foehn gap (these mountain waves were not apparent on the 4-km resolution GOES-12 water vapor imagery). There was only one isolated pilot report of turbulence in the area around the time of the MODIS water vapor image, but air traffic is generally at a minimum during that time of day.

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