{"id":15927,"date":"2014-06-18T23:59:20","date_gmt":"2014-06-18T23:59:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/?p=15927"},"modified":"2014-06-20T00:06:49","modified_gmt":"2014-06-20T00:06:49","slug":"mesoscale-convective-systems-over-the-upper-midwest-and-a-mesoscale-convective-vortex-over-wisconsin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/archives\/15927","title":{"rendered":"Mesoscale Convective Systems over the Upper Midwest, and a Mesoscale Convective Vortex over Wisconsin"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Suomi<\/a>

Suomi NPP VIIRS 11.45 \u00b5m IR channel and 0.7 \u00b5m Day\/Night Band images, with cloud-to-ground lightning strikes<\/p><\/div>\n

A comparison of AWIPS images of Suomi NPP VIIRS 11.45 \u00b5m IR channel and 0.7 \u00b5m Day\/Night Band data (above)<\/strong><\/em> showed very large areas of cold cloud-top IR brightness temperatures associated with Mesoscale Convective Systems (MCSs) over the Upper Midwest region of the US at 08:00 UTC (3:00 AM Central time) on 18 June 2014<\/strong><\/a>. The coldest IR brightness temperature was -88\u00ba C over far southern\u00a0 Minnesota.\u00a0 Numerous bright white “streaks” were seen on the Day\/Night Band (DNB) image, which indicated portions of the cloud that were illuminated by intense lightning activity. Cloud-to-ground lightning strikes are also plotted on the DNB image, showing how electrically-active these storms were at the time. The western MCS initially formed over eastern South Dakota during the previous evening, producing a few tornadoes there (SPC storm reports<\/strong><\/a>). The eastern MCS began to form later along the Wisconsin\/Illinois border region — one aircraft flying near the northern edge of a rapidly-developing thunderstorm encountered severe turbulence<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n

Shortly after the time of the Suomi NPP satellite overpass, a 08:21 UTC overpass of the NOAA-19 POES satellite provided AVHRR-derived CLAVR-x<\/strong><\/a> Cloud Top Temperature (CTT), Cloud Top Height (CTH), and Cloud Type products (below)<\/strong><\/em>. The minimum CTT value was -84\u00ba C, and the maximum CTH value was 14 km; much of the MCS cloud shield was classified as the Overshooting Top type (magenta color).<\/p>\n

\"POES<\/a>

POES AVHRR Cloud Top Temperature, Cloud Top Height, and Cloud Type products<\/p><\/div>\n

After sunrise, McIDAS\u00a0 images of GOES-13 0.63 \u00b5m visible channel data (below; click image to play animation; also available as an MP4 movie file<\/a>)<\/strong><\/em> showed that the eroding MCS cirrus shield aloft exposed a middle-tropospheric Mesoscale Convective Vortex (MCV) which continued moving eastward across Wisconsin during the day.<\/p>\n

\"GOES-13<\/a>

GOES-13 0.63 \u00b5m visible channel images (click to play animation)<\/p><\/div>\n

Consecutive overpasses of the Terra and Aqua satellites provided MODIS 0.65 \u00b5m visible channel images of the region (below)<\/strong><\/em>. The convective outflow boundary from the earlier MCS activity had acted to push the warm frontal boundary (which had been acting as a focus for convective development) south of the Wisconsin\/Illinois border, leaving a relatively stable boundary layer with a weak capping inversion aloft over Wisconsin — as a result, the MCV circulation did not play a role in initiating any new convective development.<\/p>\n

\"MODIS<\/a>

MODIS 0.65 \u00b5m visible channel images, with surface reports and surface fronts<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A comparison of AWIPS images of Suomi NPP VIIRS 11.45 \u00b5m IR channel and 0.7 \u00b5m Day\/Night Band data (above) showed very large areas of cold cloud-top IR brightness temperatures associated with Mesoscale Convective Systems (MCSs) over the Upper Midwest region of the US at 08:00 UTC (3:00 AM Central time) on 18 June 2014. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":15931,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[22,21,11,30,12,3,49,48],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15927","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-avhrr","category-aviation","category-goes-13","category-lightning","category-modis","category-severe-convection","category-suomi_npp","category-viirs"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15927","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=15927"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15927\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15935,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15927\/revisions\/15935"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15931"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15927"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15927"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15927"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}