{"id":580,"date":"2007-12-02T23:58:20","date_gmt":"2007-12-02T23:58:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/archives\/580"},"modified":"2008-08-13T15:34:01","modified_gmt":"2008-08-13T15:34:01","slug":"lee-cirrus-clouds-in-colorado","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/archives\/580","title":{"rendered":"Lee cirrus clouds in Colorado"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"GOES-11<\/a><\/p>\n

A patch of dense cirrus clouds developed to the lee (downwind)<\/em> of the mountains of the Colorado “Front Range” on 02 December 2007<\/strong><\/a> — this cloud feature marked the crest of a standing wave<\/strong><\/a> that had formed as stable air flowed from west to east across the Rocky Mountains. GOES-11 visible images (above)<\/strong><\/em> showed that these cirrus clouds quickly increased in areal coverage during the afternoon hours. A closer view using 250-m resolution MODIS true imagery from the SSEC MODIS Today<\/strong><\/a> site (below) <\/strong><\/em>revealed the shadow cast on the ground by the dense cloud patch that was located near Denver; deep snow cover in the higher elevations of the Rocky Mountains to the west of Denver was also clearly evident.<\/p>\n

\"MODIS<\/a><\/p>\n

One isolated pilot report of moderate turbulence was noted by an aircraft in the area of the dense cirrus patch near Denver (KDNR)<\/strong>, as seen on a AWIPS 4-panel of MODIS images (below)<\/strong><\/em>; while the turbulence report was plotted on AWIPS at the default altitude of 26,000 feet (“260”), the actual pilot report indicated “FLUNKN” (Flight Level Unknown)<\/em>. As expected, the lee cloud features exhibited a bright appearance on the MODIS “cirrus detection channel” (lower left panel)<\/strong><\/em>, with fairly cold pixels on the MODIS 11.0 \u00c2\u00b5m IR channel image (-67\u00c2\u00ba C, upper right panel)<\/strong><\/em> and the MODIS Cloud Top Temperature product (-63\u00c2\u00ba C, lower right panel)<\/strong><\/em>.<\/p>\n

\"MODIS<\/a><\/p>\n

The coldest MODIS 11.0 \u00c2\u00b5m IR brightness temperature (below)<\/strong><\/em> of -67\u00c2\u00baC<\/strong> corresponded to an altitude of about 53,000 feet<\/strong> above ground level according to the most recent Denver (KDNR) rawinsonde data.<\/p>\n

\"MODIS<\/a><\/p>\n

In contrast, the coldest GOES-12 10.7 \u00c2\u00b5m IR brightness temperature (below)<\/strong><\/em> from around that same time was -59\u00c2\u00ba C<\/strong>, which corresponded to a lower altitude of about 38,200 feet<\/strong> above ground level.<\/p>\n

\"GOES-12<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A patch of dense cirrus clouds developed to the lee (downwind) of the mountains of the Colorado “Front Range” on 02 December 2007 — this cloud feature marked the crest of a standing wave that had formed as stable air flowed from west to east across the Rocky Mountains. GOES-11 visible images (above) showed that […]<\/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":[21,10,18,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-580","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-aviation","category-general-interpretation","category-goes-11","category-modis"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/580","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=580"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/580\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":699,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/580\/revisions\/699"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=580"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=580"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=580"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}