{"id":30441,"date":"2018-10-25T20:59:58","date_gmt":"2018-10-25T20:59:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/?p=30441"},"modified":"2018-10-27T17:37:52","modified_gmt":"2018-10-27T17:37:52","slug":"mountain-waves-and-a-banner-cloud-over-the-northeast-us","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/archives\/30441","title":{"rendered":"Mountain waves and a banner cloud over the Northeast US"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"GOES-16<\/a>

GOES-16 Low-level (7.3 \u00b5m),<\/em> Mid=level (6.9 \u00b5m)<\/em> and Upper-level (6.2 \u00b5m)<\/em> Water Vapor images [click to play MP4 animation]<\/p><\/div>GOES-16 (GOES-East)<\/em> Low-level (7.3 \u00b5m<\/strong><\/a>), Mid-level (6.9 \u00b5m<\/strong><\/a>) and Upper-level (6.2 \u00b5m<\/strong><\/a>) Water Vapor images (above)<\/strong><\/em> revealed 2 types of terrain-induced features — mountain waves, and a banner cloud (reference 1<\/strong><\/a>| | reference 2<\/strong><\/a>) — across the Northeast US on 25 October 2018<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n

The mountain waves were more widespread and long-lasting, while the banner cloud formed to the lee of the White Mountains<\/strong><\/a> in New Hampshire and Maine (extending downwind as far as 100 miles). Mountain waves are often associated with turbulence; pilot reports of Moderate turbulence appeared in the vicinity of mountain waves over far eastern New York at 1202 UTC<\/strong><\/a>,\u00a0 1417 UTC<\/strong><\/a> and 1742 UTC<\/strong><\/a>. A toggle between a 1009 UTC 6.9 \u00b5m Water Vapor image with the banner cloud and Topography is shown below; a later comparison at 1802 UTC showing widespread mountain waves can be seen here<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"GOES-16<\/a>

GOES-16 Mid-level Water Vapor (6.9 \u00b5m)<\/em> image + Topography [click to enlarge]<\/p><\/div>Strong winds<\/strong><\/a> were prevalent across that region in the wake of a storm centered over the Gulf of Saint Lawrence at 12 UTC<\/strong><\/a> — this storm produced as much as 5-12 inches of snow on the previous day in Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine:\u00a0 NWS Burlington<\/strong><\/a> | NWS Gray<\/strong><\/a> | NWS Caribou<\/strong><\/a> — and the approach of a mid\/upper-level jet streak (below)<\/strong><\/em>. Winds gusted to 74 knots<\/strong><\/a> at Mount Washington, New Hampshire.<\/p>\n

\"GOES-16<\/a>

GOES-16 Mid-level (6.9 \u00b5m)<\/em> Water Vapor images, with RAP40 wind isotachs at 300 hPa [click to play animation | MP4<\/strong><\/a>]<\/p><\/div>A comparison of 1-km resolution Aqua MODIS Water Vapor (6.7 \u00b5m) and Infrared Window (11.0 \u00b5m) images at 0648 UTC (below)<\/strong><\/em> showed that there were some areas where the mountain waves existed in clear air, with no clouds as an indicator of wave presence (for example, over western Maine).<\/p>\n

\"<\/a>

Aqua MODIS Water Vapor (6.7 \u00b5m)<\/em> and Infrared Window (11.0 \u00b5m)<\/em> images [click to enlarge]<\/p><\/div>A general lack of wave clouds over western Maine around that time was also evident on VIIRS Day\/Night Band (0.7 \u00b5m) images (below)<\/strong><\/em> from Suomi NPP (at 0603 UTC)<\/em> and NOAA-20 (at 0650 UTC)<\/em>. In this case, with ample illumination from the Moon — in the Waning Gibbous phase, at 99% of Full — the “visible image at night” capability of the Day\/Night Band was fully realized.<\/p>\n

\"Suomi<\/a>

Suomi NPP (0603 UTC) and NOAA-20 (0650 UTC) VIIRS Day\/Night Band (0.7 \u00b5m)<\/em> images [click to enlarge]<\/p><\/div>Regarding the banner cloud which was present from about 0830-1700 UTC, the GOES-16 Cloud Top Height\u00a0 and Cloud Top Phase products (below)<\/strong><\/em> indicated that the tops of the feature were around 24,000-25,000 feet (or 7.6 km, where the temperature was -43.1\u00baC on the 12 UTC Gray ME sounding: plot<\/a> <\/strong>| text<\/a><\/strong>) and composed of ice crystals.<\/p>\n

\"GOES-16<\/a>

GOES-16 Cloud Top Height product [click to play animation | MP4<\/strong><\/a>]<\/p><\/div>

\"GOES-16<\/a>

GOES-16 Cloud Top Phase product [click to play animation | MP4<\/strong><\/a>]<\/p><\/div><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

GOES-16 (GOES-East) Low-level (7.3 \u00b5m), Mid-level (6.9 \u00b5m) and Upper-level (6.2 \u00b5m) Water Vapor images (above) revealed 2 types of terrain-induced features — mountain waves, and a banner cloud (reference 1| | reference 2) — across the Northeast US on 25 October 2018. The mountain waves were more widespread and long-lasting, while the banner cloud […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":30444,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[70,21,74,12,78,49,48],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30441","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-aqua","category-aviation","category-goes-16","category-modis","category-noaa-20","category-suomi_npp","category-viirs"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30441","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=30441"}],"version-history":[{"count":20,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30441\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30477,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30441\/revisions\/30477"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30444"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30441"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30441"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30441"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}