{"id":15047,"date":"2014-02-28T23:59:40","date_gmt":"2014-02-28T23:59:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/?p=15047"},"modified":"2014-03-03T02:22:13","modified_gmt":"2014-03-03T02:22:13","slug":"strong-storm-off-the-coast-of-california","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/archives\/15047","title":{"rendered":"Strong storm off the coast of California"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"GOES-15<\/a>

GOES-15 6.5 \u00c2\u00b5m water vapor channel images (click to play animation)<\/p><\/div>\n

McIDAS images of 4-km resolution GOES-15 6.5 \u00c2\u00b5m water vapor channel data (above; click image to play animation; also available as an MP4 animation<\/a>)<\/strong><\/em> showed the development of a strong and rapidly-occluding storm off the coast of California during the 27 February<\/strong><\/a> – 28 February 2014<\/strong><\/a> period.<\/p>\n

An AWIPS image of 17:30 UTC GOES-15 water vapor channel data with overlays of 17:28 UTC Metop ASCAT surface scatterometer winds and the 18:00 UTC tropical surface analysis (below)<\/strong><\/em> showed satellite-sensed surface winds as strong as 51 knots in the southwestern quadrant of the storm.<\/p>\n

\"GOES-15<\/a>

GOES-15 6.5 \u00c2\u00b5m water vapor channel image with ASCAT surface scatterometer winds and surface analysis<\/p><\/div>\n

Greater detail in the storm structure could be seen in 1-km resolution MODIS 6.7 \u00c2\u00b5m water vapor channel images at 10:32 UTC and 21:40 UTC (below)<\/strong><\/em>.<\/p>\n

\"MODIS<\/a>

MODIS 6.7 \u00c2\u00b5m water vapor channel images<\/p><\/div>\n

One indication of the strength of the storm was the high amounts of GOES-15 sounder Total Column Ozone associated with the circulation (below; click image to play animation),<\/strong><\/em> which reached levels as high as 440-450 Dobson Units (lighter red color enhancement)<\/em>. Such high levels of total column ozone are also often associated with potential vorticity anomalies and a dramatically lowered tropopause — in this case, the GFS40 model indicated the the dynamic tropopause (taken to be the pressure of the PV1.5 surface)<\/em> was as below the 480 hPa pressure level<\/strong><\/a> at 18:00 UTC. It is interesting to note that there was a pilot report of moderate turbulence at 36,000 feet<\/strong><\/a>, along the sharp western gradient of the total column ozone (and the sharp gradient of the PV1.5 pressure) — the pilot noted that the turbulene lasted for 10 minutes.<\/p>\n

\"GOES-15<\/a>

GOES-15 sounder Total Column Ozone product (click to play animation)<\/p><\/div>\n

A comparison of 375-meter resolution Suomi NPP VIIRS 0.64 \u00c2\u00b5m visible channel and 11.45 \u00c2\u00b5m IR channel images at 22:08 UTC (below)<\/strong><\/em> revealed a few convective elements offshore which exhibited cloud-top IR brightness temperatures as cold as -50\u00c2\u00ba C (yellow color enhancement),<\/em> with a few cloud-to-ground lightning strikes being detected.<\/p>\n

\"Suomi<\/a>

Suomi NPP VIIRS 0.64 \u00c2\u00b5m visible channel and 11.45 \u00c2\u00b5m IR channel images (with cloud-to-ground lightning strikes)<\/p><\/div>\n

===== 01 March Update =====<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Suomi<\/a>

Suomi NPP VIIRS 0.7 \u00c2\u00b5m Day\/Night Band and 11.45 \u00c2\u00b5m IR channel images<\/p><\/div>\n

A comparison of Suomi NPP VIIRS 0.7 \u00c2\u00b5m Day\/Night Band (DNB) and 11.45 \u00c2\u00b5m IR channel images at 10:22 UTC or 2:22 AM local time on 01 March<\/strong><\/a> (above)<\/strong><\/em> revealed the presence of numerous arc-shaped mesospheric airglow waves in the western semicircle of the storm circulation on the DNB image — note that there was no corresponding wave signature on the IR image.<\/p>\n

These vertically-propagating mesospheric airglow waves were likely generated by the 140-knot jet streak that was moving southward around the rear side of the storm\u00c2\u00a0 (below)<\/strong><\/em>.<\/p>\n

\"Suomi<\/a>

Suomi NPP VIIRS 0.7 \u00c2\u00b5m Day\/Night Band image with NAM 250 hPa winds and isotachs<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

McIDAS images of 4-km resolution GOES-15 6.5 \u00c2\u00b5m water vapor channel data (above; click image to play animation; also available as an MP4 animation) showed the development of a strong and rapidly-occluding storm off the coast of California during the 27 February – 28 February 2014 period. An AWIPS image of 17:30 UTC GOES-15 water […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":15048,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,15,43,30,58,12,25,49,48],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15047","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-aviation","category-goes-sounder","category-goes-15","category-lightning","category-metop","category-modis","category-satellite-winds","category-suomi_npp","category-viirs"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15047","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=15047"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15047\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15056,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15047\/revisions\/15056"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15048"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15047"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15047"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15047"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}