{"id":31669,"date":"2019-02-06T23:59:05","date_gmt":"2019-02-06T23:59:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/?p=31669"},"modified":"2019-02-07T19:20:56","modified_gmt":"2019-02-07T19:20:56","slug":"cloud-top-waves-over-the-pacific-ocean","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/archives\/31669","title":{"rendered":"Cloud-top waves producing turbulence north of Hawai’i"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"GOES-17<\/a>

GOES-17 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>\n

* GOES-17 images shown here are preliminary and non-operational *<\/em><\/p>\n

Transient pockets of cloud-top waves were evident on GOES-17 Low-level (7.3 \u00b5m<\/a><\/strong>), Mid-level (6.9 \u00b5m<\/a><\/strong>) and Upper-level (6.2 \u00b5m<\/a><\/strong>) Water Vapor images (above)<\/strong><\/em> north of Hawai’i on 06 February 2019. Some of the waves were located along the tops of convective cloud features, while others appeared to be randomly distributed.<\/p>\n

Plots of rawinsonde data<\/strong><\/a> from Lihue, Hawai’i (below)<\/strong><\/em> showed that winds within the middle to upper troposphere had a general westerly component — so these mesoscale cloud-top wave features were oriented perpendicular to the flow.<\/p>\n

\"Plots<\/a>

Plots of rawinsonde data from Lihue, Hawai’i [click to enlarge]<\/p><\/div>There was only 1 pilot report of turbulence within the broad region exhibiting these waves, occurring at 2304 UTC<\/strong><\/a> at an altitude of 33,000 feet — and this appeared to coincide with a discrete wave packet that was propagating eastward (below)<\/strong><\/em>.<\/p>\n

\"GOES-17<\/a>

GOES-17 Upper-level Water Vapor (6.2 \u00b5m)<\/em> images within 30 minutes of the 2304 UTC pilot report of turbulence [click to enlarge]<\/p><\/div>While the more robust wave packets could also be seen in GOES-17 “Clean” Infrared Window (10.3 \u00b5m<\/a><\/strong>) images (below)<\/strong>,<\/em> their complete areal coverage was more obvious in the Water Vapor imagery — particularly where the wave features were more subtle.<\/p>\n

<\/a>

GOES-17 Upper-level Water Vapor (6.2 \u00b5m)<\/em> and “Clean” Infrared Window (10.3 \u00b5m)<\/em> images at 2302 UTC [click to enlarge]<\/p><\/div>Aviation advisories for Significant Weather (SIGWX) had been issued for that region (below)<\/strong>,<\/em> which included a Moderate risk for Clear Air Turbulence (CAT) from 28,000-39,000 feet and the possibility of isolated\/embedded Cumulonimbus (CB) clouds with tops to 38,000 feet,<\/em> along with a west-northwest high-level jet stream from 290\u00ba at 90 knots. The pilot report<\/a><\/strong> of turbulence at 33,000 feet included winds from 261\u00ba at 81 knots.<\/p>\n

\"GOES-17<\/a>

GOES-17 Upper-level Water Vapor (6.2 \u00b5m)<\/em> image, with plots of aviation Significant Weather advisories that were in effect at that time [click to enlarge]<\/p><\/div>The cloud-top waves were also seen in a sequence of VIIRS<\/a><\/strong> Infrared Window (11.45 \u00b5m) images from NOAA-20 and Suomi NPP, viewed using RealEarth<\/strong><\/a> (below)<\/strong><\/em>.<\/p>\n

\"VIIRS<\/a>

VIIRS Infrared Window (11.45 \u00b5m)<\/em> images from NOAA-20 (at 2230 and 0030 UTC<\/em>) and Suomi NPP (at 2320 UTC)<\/em> [click to enlarge]<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

* GOES-17 images shown here are preliminary and non-operational * Transient pockets of cloud-top waves were evident on GOES-17 Low-level (7.3 \u00b5m), Mid-level (6.9 \u00b5m) and Upper-level (6.2 \u00b5m) Water Vapor images (above) north of Hawai’i on 06 February 2019. Some of the waves were located along the tops of convective cloud features, while others […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":31677,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,80,78,53,49,48],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31669","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-aviation","category-goes-17","category-noaa-20","category-real-earth","category-suomi_npp","category-viirs"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31669","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=31669"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31669\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31685,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31669\/revisions\/31685"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31677"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31669"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31669"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31669"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}