{"id":4181,"date":"2009-12-22T23:08:18","date_gmt":"2009-12-22T23:08:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/?p=4181"},"modified":"2010-05-20T16:48:33","modified_gmt":"2010-05-20T16:48:33","slug":"blowing-dust-in-arizona","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/archives\/4181","title":{"rendered":"Blowing dust in Arizona"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"MODIS<\/a>

MODIS true color image (displayed using Google Earth)<\/p><\/div>\n

\n

Strong winds<\/strong><\/a> associated with a developing storm over the southwestern US caused areas of blowing dust across southern Arizona on 22 December 2009<\/a><\/strong>. A MODIS true color image from the SSEC MODIS Today<\/strong><\/a> site\u00c2\u00a0 (above)<\/em><\/strong> showed one of the larger plumes of blowing dust which was moving northeastward across the region. On a smaller scale, there were also localized areas of very thick blowing dust that reduced visibility and caused a number of multiple-vehicle accidents along Interstate 10 between Tucson and Phoenix — fatalities were reported with one of the larger vehicle pile-ups near Casa Grande.<\/p>\n

AWIPS images of the AVHRR Cloud Top Temperature (CTT) and Cloud Particle Effective Radius products (below)<\/em><\/strong> indicated that CTT values associated with the large-scale blowing dust plume were around +10 to +15\u00c2\u00ba C, which was between the 921 and 850 hPa pressure levels on the Tucson AZ rawinsonde report<\/a><\/strong>. The dust particle effective radius values were in the 15-25 \u00c2\u00b5m range — much smaller than the 50-100 \u00c2\u00b5m values seen for the cloud features located in other parts of the image scene.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

AVHRR Cloud Top Temperture and Cloud Particle Effective Radius products<\/p><\/div>\n

\"GOES-14<\/a>

GOES-14 visible images<\/p><\/div>\n

As part of its ongoing NOAA Science Test<\/strong><\/a>, GOES-14 was emulating GOES-West operations on that day. McIDAS images of the GOES-14 visible channel data (above)<\/em><\/strong> showed the evolution of the large-scale dust plume as it became more organized along the Arizona\/Mexico border and moved northeastward toward the Casa Grande (station identifier KCGZ)<\/em> area. Also worthy of mention is the fact that the convection that moved through the Phoenix area generated a few reports of 0.25 inch diameter hail.<\/p>\n

A clue to the approach of strong mid-tropospheric winds could be seen in a comparison of 4-km resolution GOES-14 6.5 \u00c2\u00b5m water vapor and 8-km resolution GOES-11 6.7 \u00c2\u00b5m water vapor images (below)<\/em><\/strong> — lee waves were apparent immediately downwind of the higher terrain, particularly over Baja California. Note how the improvement in spatial resolution from 8-km to 4-km improves the ability to detect the complexity and the areal extent of the lee waves on water vapor imagery. When GOES-11 is due for replacement as the operational GOES-West satellite, GOES-14 will likely take over that duty.<\/p>\n

\"GOES-14<\/a>

GOES-14 6.5 \u00c2\u00b5m and GOES-11 6.7 \u00c2\u00b5m water vapor images<\/p><\/div>\n

A MODIS 11.0 \u00c2\u00b5m – 12.0 \u00c2\u00b5m IR difference image (below)<\/em><\/strong> was useful for helping to highlight the large-scale blowing dust plume at 20:09 UTC. Beginning with GOES-12<\/a><\/strong>, the Imager instrument 12.0 \u00c2\u00b5m IR channel was replaced with a 13.3 \u00c2\u00b5m channel, preventing the application of this type of IR difference blowing dust identification on the more recent GOES satellites — however, the 12.0 \u00c2\u00b5m IR channel will return on the ABI<\/a><\/strong> instrument aboard GOES-R<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\"MODIS<\/a>

MODIS 11.0 \u00c2\u00b5m - 12.0 \u00c2\u00b5m IR difference image<\/p><\/div>\n

\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Strong winds associated with a developing storm over the southwestern US caused areas of blowing dust across southern Arizona on 22 December 2009. A MODIS true color image from the SSEC MODIS Today site\u00c2\u00a0 (above) showed one of the larger plumes of blowing dust which was moving northeastward across the region. On a smaller scale, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,22,18,40,34,32,12,45],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4181","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-air-quality","category-avhrr","category-goes-11","category-goes-14","category-goes-r","category-google-earth","category-modis","category-redgreenblue-rgb-images"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4181","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=4181"}],"version-history":[{"count":31,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4181\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5688,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4181\/revisions\/5688"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4181"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4181"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4181"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}