{"id":69092,"date":"2026-02-21T19:57:00","date_gmt":"2026-02-21T19:57:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/?p=69092"},"modified":"2026-02-22T22:46:39","modified_gmt":"2026-02-22T22:46:39","slug":"power-plant-plume-over-southern-wisconsin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/archives\/69092","title":{"rendered":"Power plant plume over southern Wisconsin"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><div style=\"width: 1325px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/images\/2026\/02\/260221_goes19_nighttimeMicrophysicsRGB_daytimeTrueColorRGB_WI_power_plant_plume.mp4\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/images\/2026\/02\/goeseast_abi_radm2_true_color_night_20260221143255.png\" width=\"1315\" height=\"743\" \/><\/a><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">1-minute GOES-19 Nighttime Microphysics RGB + daytime True Color RGB images, from 0901-1900 UTC on 21 February [click to play MP4 animation]<\/p><\/div>1-minute Mesoscale Domain Sector GOES-19 <em>(GOES-East)<\/em> <a href=\"https:\/\/rammb2.cira.colostate.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/QuickGuide_GOESR_NtMicroRGB_Final_20191206_acc.pdf\"><strong>Nighttime Microphysics RGB<\/strong><\/a> + daytime True Color RGB images from the <a href=\"https:\/\/geosphere.ssec.wisc.edu\/#playing:true;coordinate:-177256,137866;zoom:1.4;num_frames:60;\"><strong>CSPP GeoSphere<\/strong><\/a> site (<em><strong>above<\/strong><\/em>) showed the formation of a long power plant plume (nighttime shades of red) embedded within a supercooled water droplet cloud layer (nighttime shades of yellow) that grew in length and width as it moved southeastward across southern Wisconsin on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wpc.ncep.noaa.gov\/dailywxmap\/index_20260221.html\"><strong>21 February 2026<\/strong><\/a>. The power plant plume had the effect of eroding the supercooled water droplet cloud layer &#8212; via glaciation, initiated by the power plant emission of particles that acted as efficient ice nuclei &#8212; which then caused snow to fall from the cloud (leaving holes and thin cloud segments that were very apparent in True Color RGB images).<\/p>\n<p>A toggle between the GOES-19 <a href=\"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/goes\/OCLOFactSheetPDFs\/ABIQuickGuide_NightFogBTD.pdf\"><strong>Night Fog<\/strong><\/a> Brightness Temperature Difference (BTD) image and <a href=\"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/goes\/OCLOFactSheetPDFs\/ABIQuickGuide_BaselineCloudPhase.pdf\"><strong>Cloud Top Phase<\/strong><\/a> derived product at 1200 UTC <em><strong>(below)<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0confirmed that the cloud layer across southern Wisconsin was composed of supercooled water droplets (lime green enhancement).<\/p>\n<p><div style=\"width: 3002px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/images\/2026\/02\/260221_1200utc_nightFogBTD_cloudTopPhase_WI_powerplant_plume_anim.gif\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/images\/2026\/02\/260221_1200utc_nightFogBTD_cloudTopPhase_WI_powerplant_plume_anim.gif\" width=\"2992\" height=\"1680\" \/><\/a><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">GOES-19 Night Fog BTD image and Cloud Top Phase derived product at 1200 UTC on 21 February [click to enlarge]<\/p><\/div>1-minute GOES-19 Night Fog BTD + daytime Visible images <strong><em>(below)<\/em><\/strong> suggested that the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gem.wiki\/Columbia_Energy_Center\"><strong>Columbia Energy Center<\/strong><\/a> in northwest Columbia County was the source of the power plant plume.<\/p>\n<div style=\"width: 3002px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/images\/2026\/02\/260221_goes19_nightFogBTD_visible_power_plant_plume_WI.mp4\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/images\/2026\/02\/260221_1200utc_nightFogBTD_powerplant_plume.png\" width=\"2992\" height=\"1682\" \/><\/a><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">1-minute GOES-19 Night Fog BTD + daytime Visible images, from 0801-1819 UTC on 21 February [click to play MP4 animation]<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>1-minute Mesoscale Domain Sector GOES-19 (GOES-East) Nighttime Microphysics RGB + daytime True Color RGB images from the CSPP GeoSphere site (above) showed the formation of a long power plant plume (nighttime shades of red) embedded within a supercooled water droplet cloud layer (nighttime shades of yellow) that grew in length and width as it moved [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":69095,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[159,45],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-69092","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-goes-19","category-redgreenblue-rgb-images"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69092","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=69092"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69092\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":69111,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69092\/revisions\/69111"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/69095"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=69092"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=69092"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=69092"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}