{"id":12683,"date":"2013-04-18T15:56:14","date_gmt":"2013-04-18T15:56:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/?p=12683"},"modified":"2013-05-13T15:12:33","modified_gmt":"2013-05-13T15:12:33","slug":"satellite-signatures-of-the-west-texas-fertilizer-plant-explosion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/archives\/12683","title":{"rendered":"Satellite signatures of the West, Texas fertilizer plant explosion"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"width: 490px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2013\/04\/US_3.9u_Sat_20130418_0110.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" \" alt=\"GOES-13 3.9 \u00c2\u00b5m shortwave IR image\" src=\"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2013\/04\/US_3.9u_Sat_20130418_0110.png\" width=\"480\" height=\"291\" \/><\/a><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">GOES-13 3.9 \u00c2\u00b5m shortwave IR image<\/p><\/div>\n<p>A powerful and deadly explosion at a fertilizer plant in the city of West, Texas occurred on the evening of <a title=\"17 April 2013 daily weather map\" href=\"http:\/\/www.hpc.ncep.noaa.gov\/dailywxmap\/index_20130417.html\"><strong>17 April 2013<\/strong><\/a>. A thinning of the layered cloudiness across the region allowed the 4-km resolution GOES-13 3.9 \u00c2\u00b5m shortwave IR channel image<em><strong> (above)<\/strong><\/em> to reveal a subtle &#8220;hot spot&#8221; <em>(yellow color enhancement)<\/em> signature of the large fire that burned into the night.<\/p>\n<p>Shown below is a comparison of\u00c2\u00a0 images from the Suomi NPP VIIRS 0.7 \u00c2\u00b5m Day\/Night Band (DNB) at 08:00 UTC or 3:00 AM local time on 17 April <em>(the night before the explosion)<\/em> and 07:41 UTC or 2:41 AM local time on 18 April <em>(the night after the explosion).<\/em> The 18 April DNB image appears to display a brighter signal in the West, Texas area <em>(circled),<\/em> although it is unclear whether this brighter signal on the later Day\/Night Band image is due to the fire, or the large amount of emergency response activity, or some combination of the two factors. The presence of optically-thick cloud layers across the region may also be playing a role in the apparent West, Texas brightness differences sensed by the DNB detectors; this effect is very notable in the city light signature of the Dallas\/Ft.Worth area in the upper center portion of the 2 images.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div style=\"width: 489px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2013\/04\/130417-18_suomi_npp_viirs_dnb_West_TX_anim.gif\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" \" alt=\"Night-time Suomi NPP VIIRS Day\/Night Band images on 17 April and 18 April\" src=\"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2013\/04\/130417-18_suomi_npp_viirs_dnb_West_TX_anim.gif\" width=\"479\" height=\"323\" \/><\/a><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Night-time Suomi NPP VIIRS Day\/Night Band images on 17 April and 18 April<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A powerful and deadly explosion at a fertilizer plant in the city of West, Texas occurred on the evening of 17 April 2013. A thinning of the layered cloudiness across the region allowed the 4-km resolution GOES-13 3.9 \u00c2\u00b5m shortwave IR channel image (above) to reveal a subtle &#8220;hot spot&#8221; (yellow color enhancement) signature of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,11,49,48],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12683","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fire-detection","category-goes-13","category-suomi_npp","category-viirs"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12683","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=12683"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12683\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12685,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12683\/revisions\/12685"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12683"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12683"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12683"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}