{"id":12039,"date":"2012-12-25T23:59:16","date_gmt":"2012-12-25T23:59:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/?p=12039"},"modified":"2023-12-25T20:20:00","modified_gmt":"2023-12-25T20:20:00","slug":"christmas-day-storm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/archives\/12039","title":{"rendered":"Christmas Day storm across the southern US"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Suomi<\/a>

Suomi-NPP VIIRS 0.64 \u00b5m visible and 11.45 \u00b5m IR channel images [click to enlarge]<\/p><\/div>A large and intense storm system moved across the southern US on 25 December 2012<\/a><\/strong>, producing a wide variety of weather that included heavy snow from Texas and Oklahoma into Arkansas (HPC storm summary<\/a><\/strong>), along with hail, damaging winds, and tornadoes from eastern Texas into Alabama (SPC storm reports<\/a><\/strong>).<\/p>\n

AWIPS images of 1-km resolution Suomi-NPP VIIRS 0.64 \u00b5m visible channel and 11.45 \u00b5m IR channel data with overlays of surface reports and the corresponding surface analysis (above)<\/em><\/strong> showed great detail in the cloud structure, as well as the variety of weather conditions across the region at 19:41 UTC. At 19:48 UTC, a similar comparison of 1-km resolution MODIS 0.65 \u00b5m visible channel, 11.0 \u00b5m IR channel, and 6.7 \u00b5m water vapor channel images (below)<\/em><\/strong> also showed the cloud structure associated with the storm, in addition to the well-defined dry slot associated with an upper level cyclonically-curved jet streak<\/strong><\/a> that was wrapping around the base of the storm.<\/p>\n

\"MODIS<\/a>

MODIS 0.65 \u00b5m visible, 11.0 \u00b5m IR, and 6.7 \u00b5m water vapor images [click to enlarge]<\/p><\/div>GOES-13 10.7 \u00b5m IR channel images (below; click image to play animation; also available as a QuickTime movie<\/a>)<\/em><\/strong> included overlays of\u00a0 SPC Storm Reports of hail, damaging winds, and tornadoes. This event may turn out to be one of the largest outbreaks of tornadoes on record for Christmas Day — and the EF-3 rated tornado that struck Pearl River County in Mississippi was the strongest tornado on record for Christmas Day<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\"GOES-13<\/a>

GOES-13 10.7 \u00b5m IR channel images [click image to play animation]<\/p><\/div>GOES-13 6.5 \u00b5m water vapor channel images (below; click image to play animation; also available as a QuickTime movie<\/a>)<\/em><\/strong> showed the dry slot (associated with the upper-level jet streak) as it approached the rear edge of the squall line which formed in eastern Texas and intensified as it moved eastward into Mississippi and Alabama.<\/p>\n

\"GOES-13<\/a>

GOES-13 6.5 \u00b5m water vapor channel images [click image to play animation]<\/p><\/div>\n

===== 26 December Update =====<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Suomi<\/a>

Suomi-NPP VIIRS 0.7 \u00b5m Day\/Night Band and IR brightness temperature difference “Fog\/stratus product’ images [click to enlarge]<\/p><\/div>A “nighttime visible image” provided by the Suomi-NPP VIIRS 0.7 \u00b5m Day\/Night Band (above)<\/em><\/strong> showed the hook-shaped signature of moonlight-illuminated snow cover across the Texas\/Oklahoma Panhandle region and surrounding areas at 07:58 UTC or 1:58 AM local time on 26 December. The corresponding VIIRS IR brightness temperature difference “Fog\/stratus product” image showed that while there were some patches of low cloud (yellow to red color enhancement)<\/em> in the central and eastern portions of the satellite scene (as well as high cirrus clouds, black enhancement, approaching from the west),<\/em> the majority of the bright areas seen on the Day\/Night Band image were fresh snow cover.<\/p>\n

Later in the day, a comparison of the 19:22 UTC VIIRS 0.64 \u00b5m visible channel image with the corresponding false-color Red\/Green\/Blue (RGB) image (below)<\/em><\/strong> demonstrated the value of using RGB images to help discriminate between snow cover (shades of red)<\/em> and supercooled water droplet cloud features (shades of white)<\/em>. Storm total snowfall amounts in Arkansas were as high as 15.0 inches.<\/p>\n

\"Suomi<\/a>

Suomi-NPP VIIRS 0.64 \u00b5m visible channel and false-color Red\/Green\/Blue (RGB) images [click to enlarge]<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A large and intense storm system moved across the southern US on 25 December 2012, producing a wide variety of weather that included heavy snow from Texas and Oklahoma into Arkansas (HPC storm summary), along with hail, damaging winds, and tornadoes from eastern Texas into Alabama (SPC storm reports). AWIPS images of 1-km resolution Suomi-NPP […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":56168,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,12,45,3,49,48,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12039","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-goes-13","category-modis","category-redgreenblue-rgb-images","category-severe-convection","category-suomi_npp","category-viirs","category-winter-weather"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12039","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12039"}],"version-history":[{"count":23,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12039\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":56177,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12039\/revisions\/56177"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/56168"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12039"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12039"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12039"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}