{"id":68307,"date":"2025-12-30T23:35:00","date_gmt":"2025-12-30T23:35:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/?p=68307"},"modified":"2026-01-02T16:37:39","modified_gmt":"2026-01-02T16:37:39","slug":"tehuano-gap-wind-event-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/archives\/68307","title":{"rendered":"Tehuano gap wind event"},"content":{"rendered":"

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10-minute GOES-19 Near-Infrared images, from 1300-2330 UTC on 30 December [click to play MP4 animation]<\/p><\/div>As a strong arctic cold front moved southward across the Gulf of Mexico toward southern Mexico on 29-30 December 2025 (surface analyses<\/strong><\/a>), the cold front fractured as it moved inland across the Isthmus of Tehuantepec — the cold air was then channeled southward through Chivela Pass and emerged as a Tehuano (or \u201cTehuantepecer<\/strong><\/a>\u201c) gap wind that eventually fanned outward across the Gulf of Tehuantepec and adjacent Pacific Ocean. 10-minute Full Disk scan GOES-19 (GOES-East)<\/em> Near-Infrared images (above)<\/strong><\/em> showed the hazy plume of dust that was being transported offshore — along with a narrow arc cloud that marked the southern and eastern edges of this Tehuano flow. As north-northwesterly winds increased in the wake of the cold frontal passage, blowing dust reduced the surface visibility to 6 miles at Veracruz (MMVR<\/strong><\/a>) and hazy conditions reduced visibility to 4 miles at Minatitl\u00e1n (MMMT<\/strong><\/a>).<\/p>\n

A topography image (below)<\/strong><\/em> also showed Metop-B ASCAT winds emerging from the southern coast of Mexico, after the gap winds had accelerated through Chivela Pass; wind speeds were as high as 45 kts<\/strong><\/a>. The Tropical Analysis and Forecast Branch<\/strong><\/a> had issued a polygon where Storm Force winds were likely over the Gulf or Tehuantepec (1800 UTC surface analysis<\/strong><\/a>).<\/p>\n

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Topography image, with Metop-B ASCAT wind barbs (having speeds of 34-47 kts) valid at 1513 UTC plotted in cyan [click to enlarge]<\/p><\/div>A sequence of ASCAT and OSCAT-3 surface scatterometer winds (below)<\/strong><\/em> showed how the offshore plume of stronger gap winds increased in size and intensity from the nighttime hours to the daytime hours on 30 December — with wind speeds of 50 kts and higher (black wind barbs) appearing just off the southern coast of Mexico in the final 1758 UTC OSCAT-3 image.<\/p>\n

Sequence of Metop-B\/C ASCAT and OSCAT-3 wind barbs, from 0242-1758 UTC on 30 December<\/p><\/div>\n

True Color RGB images from GOES-18 (GOES-West)<\/em>\u00a0and GOES-19 from the CSPP GeoSphere<\/strong><\/a> site (below)<\/strong><\/em> displayed the hazy plume of blowing dust as it fanned out across the Gulf of Tehuantepec and the Pacific Ocean.<\/p>\n

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10-minute True Color RGB images from GOES-18 (left) and GOES-19 (right), from 1330-2330 UTC on 30 December [click to play MP4 animation]<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As a strong arctic cold front moved southward across the Gulf of Mexico toward southern Mexico on 29-30 December 2025 (surface analyses), the cold front fractured as it moved inland across the Isthmus of Tehuantepec — the cold air was then channeled southward through Chivela Pass and emerged as a Tehuano (or \u201cTehuantepecer\u201c) gap wind […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":68311,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,114,159,58,45,25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-68307","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-air-quality","category-goes-18","category-goes-19","category-metop","category-redgreenblue-rgb-images","category-satellite-winds"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68307","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=68307"}],"version-history":[{"count":28,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68307\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":68362,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68307\/revisions\/68362"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/68311"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68307"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68307"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68307"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}