{"id":68787,"date":"2026-02-05T23:56:00","date_gmt":"2026-02-05T23:56:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/?p=68787"},"modified":"2026-02-07T22:57:17","modified_gmt":"2026-02-07T22:57:17","slug":"tehuano-gap-wind-event-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/archives\/68787","title":{"rendered":"Tehuano gap wind event"},"content":{"rendered":"

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10-minute GOES-19 Near-Infrared (0.87 \u00b5m) images, from 1300-2330 UTC on 05 February [click to play MP4 animation]<\/p><\/div>As a strong arctic cold front moved southward across the Gulf of Mexico toward southern Mexico on 04-05 February 2026, the cold front fractured as it moved inland across Mexico\u2019s Isthmus of Tehuantepec \u2014 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>\u00a0Near-Infrared images (above)<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0showed the hazy plume of dust that was being transported offshore \u2014 along with a narrow arc cloud that marked the edges of this Tehuano flow.<\/p>\n

The pulse of Tehuano winds emerging southward across the Gulf of Tehuantepec and the adjacent Pacific Ocean was seen in ASCAT winds (source<\/strong><\/a>) from Metop-B and Metop-C (below)<\/strong><\/em>.<\/p>\n

ASCAT winds from Metop-B and Metop-C<\/p><\/div>\n

The highest Metop-B wind speed was 40 kts (below)<\/strong><\/em>.<\/p>\n

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GOES-19 Near-Infrared (0.87 \u00b5m) image at 1550 UTC on 05 February, with a cursor sample of Metop-B wind speed at 1551 UTC [click to enlarge]<\/p><\/div>At the leading (southern) edge of the Tehuano flow, a ship reported NE winds gusting to 35 kts at 1800 UTC (below)<\/strong><\/em>.<\/p>\n

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GOES-19 Near-Infrared (0.87 \u00b5m) image at 1800 UTC on 05 February, showing a ship report with NE winds gusting to 35 kts [click to enlarge]<\/p><\/div>The broad plume of dust lofted by Tehuano winds was apparent in True Color RGB images (source<\/strong><\/a>) from both GOES-18 and GOES-19 (below)<\/strong><\/em>.<\/p>\n

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10-minute True Color RGB images from GOES-18 (GOES-West, left) and GOES-19 (GOES-East, right), from 1330-2330 UTC on 05 February [click to play MP4 animation]<\/p><\/div>A relatively narrow smoke plume was seen near the middle of the broad dust plume — and a closer look using 5-minute CONUS Sector GOES-19 GeoColor RGB images with Next Generation Fire System<\/strong><\/a> (NGFS) Fire Detection polygons (below)<\/strong><\/em> showed the larger\/hotter wildfire that was responsible for producing this smoke plume.<\/p>\n

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5-minute GOES-19 GeoColor RGB images with an overlay of NGFS Fire Detection polygons, from 1801-2331 UTC on 05 February [click to play MP4 animation]<\/p><\/div>Just south of the Pacific coast of Mexico, wind-driven significant wave height values derived from SWOT<\/strong><\/a> were as high as 9.55 ft at 2321 UTC (below)<\/strong><\/em>.<\/p>\n

‘<\/p>\n

Altimeter significant wave height values from SWOT at 2321 UTC on 05 February<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As a strong arctic cold front moved southward across the Gulf of Mexico toward southern Mexico on 04-05 February 2026, the cold front fractured as it moved inland across Mexico\u2019s Isthmus of Tehuantepec \u2014 the cold air was then channeled southward through Chivela Pass and emerged as a Tehuano (or \u201cTehuantepecer\u201c) gap wind that eventually […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":68802,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[152,6,114,159,8,58,158,53,45,25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-68787","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-altimetry","category-fire-detection","category-goes-18","category-goes-19","category-marine-weather","category-metop","category-ngfs","category-real-earth","category-redgreenblue-rgb-images","category-satellite-winds"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68787","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=68787"}],"version-history":[{"count":23,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68787\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":69423,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68787\/revisions\/69423"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/68802"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68787"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68787"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68787"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}