{"id":55720,"date":"2023-11-27T20:30:00","date_gmt":"2023-11-27T20:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/?p=55720"},"modified":"2023-12-01T23:10:39","modified_gmt":"2023-12-01T23:10:39","slug":"lake-erie-lake-efect-snow-band-produces-thundersnow-south-of-buffalo-ny","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/archives\/55720","title":{"rendered":"Lake Erie lake effect snow band produces thundersnow in western New York"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"width: 1725px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/images\/2023\/11\/231127_goes16_dayCloudPhaseDistinctionRGB_glmFlashExtentDensity_Lake_Erie_lake_effect_thundersnow_NY_anim.gif\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/images\/2023\/11\/le_rgb-20231127_194424.png\" width=\"1715\" height=\"830\" \/><\/a><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">GOES-16 Day Cloud Phase Distinction RGB images with an overlay of GLM Flash Extent Density, from 1757 UTC to 2015 UTC on 27 November [click to play animated GIF | <a href=\"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/images\/2023\/11\/231127_goes16_dayCloudPhaseDistinctionRGB_glmFlashExtentDensity_Lake_Erie_lake_effect_thundersnow_NY_anim.mp4\"><strong>MP4<\/strong><\/a>]<\/p><\/div>\n<p>1-minute\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nco.ncep.noaa.gov\/status\/satellite\/\"><strong>Mesoscale Domain Sector<\/strong><\/a> GOES-16 <em>(GOES-East)<\/em>\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/rammb2.cira.colostate.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/QuickGuide_DayCloudPhaseDistinction_final_v2.pdf\"><strong>Day Cloud Phase Distinction RGB<\/strong><\/a> images with an overlay of GLM <a href=\"https:\/\/rammb2.cira.colostate.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/GLM_Quick_Guide_Gridded_Products_June_2018.pdf\"><strong>Flash Extent Density<\/strong><\/a> <em><strong>(above)<\/strong><\/em> showed a glaciating (brighter shades of green) to glaciated (pale shades of yellow) lake effect snow (LES) band streaming inland off Lake Erie on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wpc.ncep.noaa.gov\/dailywxmap\/index_20231127.html\"><strong>17 November 2023<\/strong><\/a>. There were 4 brief periods of lightning activity seen just south of the Buffalo, New York metro area. Note: since Flash Extent Density (FED) values were relatively low, the maximum value of the default FED colormap range was adjusted to 2.5 (to emphasize peaks within the low-FED areas).<\/p>\n<p>A closer view <em><strong>(below)<\/strong><\/em> showed that the FED-indicated lightning activity was centered over the Southtowns (southern suburbs) of Boston &#8212; which had received up to <a href=\"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/images\/2023\/11\/231127_2320utc_kbuf_pns.text\"><strong>8.5 inches<\/strong><\/a> of snow by about 2300 UTC on 27 Novembver.<\/p>\n<div style=\"width: 1725px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/images\/2023\/11\/231127_goes16_clavrxCloudTopHeight_glmFlashExtentDensity_NY_zoom_anim.gif\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/images\/2023\/11\/231127_goes16_clavrxCloudTopHeight_glmFlashExtentDensity_NY_zoom_anim.gif\" width=\"1715\" height=\"830\" \/><\/a><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">GOES-16 CLAVR-x Cloud Top Height images, with an overlay of GLM Flash Extent Density, at 1916\/1926\/1936\/1946 UTC on 27 November [click to enlarge]<\/p><\/div>\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\"><p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">THUNDERSNOW Lake Erie at Hamburg Beach <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/NYwx?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#NYwx<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/KpRqAXg5Qf\">pic.twitter.com\/KpRqAXg5Qf<\/a><\/p>&mdash; BuffaloSnowKing (@BuffaloSnowKing) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/BuffaloSnowKing\/status\/1729238504377368666?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">November 27, 2023<\/a><\/blockquote><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n<p>Cursor sampling of 2-km resolution GOES-16 <a href=\"http:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/clavrx\/documentation.html\"><strong>CLAVR-x<\/strong><\/a> Cloud Top Temperature and Cloud Top Height derived products <em><strong>(below)<\/strong><\/em> indicated that the coldest cloud top temperatures within the lightning-producing LES band were in the -18 to -19\u00b0C range, with maximum cloud top heights in the 12000-13000 ft range.<\/p>\n<div style=\"width: 1926px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/images\/2023\/11\/231127_1926utc_clavrxCloudTopTemperature_clavrxCloudTopHeight_glmFlashExtentDensity_Lake_Erie_les.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/images\/2023\/11\/231127_1926utc_clavrxCloudTopTemperature_clavrxCloudTopHeight_glmFlashExtentDensity_Lake_Erie_les.png\" width=\"1916\" height=\"968\" \/><\/a><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">GOES-16 CLAVR-x Cloud Top Temperature derived product, with an overlay of CLAVR-x Cloud Top Height and GLM Flash Extent Density at 1926 UTC on 27 November [click to enlarge]<\/p><\/div>\n<p>During the next several hours, the LES cloud band slowly migrated southward &#8212; GOES-16 <a href=\"https:\/\/rammb2.cira.colostate.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/QuickGuide_GOESR_NtMicroRGB_Final_20191206-1.pdf\"><strong>Nighttime Microphysics RGB<\/strong><\/a> images with an overlay of GLM Flash Extent Density <em><strong>(below)<\/strong><\/em> suggested that the cloud tops were mixed phase (ice crystals and supercooled water droplets &#8212; shades of tan to light brown), which is a necessary condition for charge separation processes within the cloud that lead to lightning production. Another favorable thundersnow factor was a sufficiently high -10\u00b0C air temperature level of 1.1 km (<a href=\"https:\/\/journals.ametsoc.org\/view\/journals\/apme\/48\/5\/2008jamc1935.1.xml\"><strong>reference<\/strong><\/a>), as seen in <a href=\"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/images\/2023\/11\/231128_0000utc_kbuf_raob_-10C.png\"><strong>0000 UTC Buffalo rawinsonde data<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n<div style=\"width: 1725px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/images\/2023\/11\/231127_goes16_nighttimeMicrophysicsRGB_glmFlashExtentDensity_Lake_Erie_anim.gif\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/images\/2023\/11\/le2_rgb-20231128_025724.png\" width=\"1715\" height=\"830\" \/><\/a><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">GOES-16 Nighttime Microphysics RGB images with an overlay of GLM Flash Extent Density, from 0214 UTC to 0315 UTC on 28 November [click to play animated GIF | <a href=\"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/images\/2023\/11\/231127_goes16_nighttimeMicrophysicsRGB_glmFlashExtentDensity_Lake_Erie_anim.mp4\"><strong>MP4<\/strong><\/a>]<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Beginning at 0253 UTC on 28 November, notable bursts of FED lightning activity were seen in the vicinity of Chautauqua County\/Dunkirk Airport (KDKK) &#8212; which reported a thunderstorm (TS) that lasted from from 0257 UTC to 0312 UTC, and thundersnow (TSSN) at 0306 UTC <em><strong>(below)<\/strong><\/em>. The surface visibility at that site dropped from 6 miles at 0310 UTC to 1-1\/4 mile at 0320 UTC. Thanks to Rick DiMaio (Loyola University) for bringing these KDKK observations to our attention.<\/p>\n<div style=\"width: 894px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/images\/2023\/11\/231127_kdkk_metars_tssn.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/images\/2023\/11\/231127_kdkk_metars_tssn.png\" width=\"884\" height=\"535\" \/><\/a><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">METAR reports from KDKK, with mentions of a thunderstorm TS in bold text (credit: Rick DiMaio, Loyola University)<\/p><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>1-minute\u00a0Mesoscale Domain Sector GOES-16 (GOES-East)\u00a0Day Cloud Phase Distinction RGB images with an overlay of GLM Flash Extent Density (above) showed a glaciating (brighter shades of green) to glaciated (pale shades of yellow) lake effect snow (LES) band streaming inland off Lake Erie on 17 November 2023. There were 4 brief periods of lightning activity seen [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":55723,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[63,76,74,30,45,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-55720","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-clavrx","category-glm","category-goes-16","category-lightning","category-redgreenblue-rgb-images","category-winter-weather"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55720","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=55720"}],"version-history":[{"count":21,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55720\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":55789,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55720\/revisions\/55789"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/55723"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55720"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55720"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55720"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}