{"id":69463,"date":"2026-03-16T15:59:00","date_gmt":"2026-03-16T15:59:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/?p=69463"},"modified":"2026-03-17T17:58:23","modified_gmt":"2026-03-17T17:58:23","slug":"curved-contrails-south-of-dallas-fort-worth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/archives\/69463","title":{"rendered":"Circular contrails south of Dallas\/Fort Worth"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><div style=\"width: 3006px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/images\/2026\/03\/260316_goes19_visible_cirrus_waterVapor_infrared_TX_contrails.mp4\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/images\/2026\/03\/260316_1401utc_goes19_visible_cirrus_TX_contrails.png\" width=\"2996\" height=\"1676\" \/><\/a><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">5-minute GOES-19 Red Visible (0.64 \u00b5m, left) along with Near-Infrared &#8220;Cirrus&#8221; (1.38 \u00b5m), Mid-level Water Vapor (6.9 \u00b5m) and Clean Infrared Window (10.3 \u00b5m) images (right), from 1256-1501 UTC on 16 March; rawinsonde sites are plotted in red, while airport identifiers are plotted in gray [click to play MP4 animation]<\/p><\/div>5-minute GOES-19 <em>(GOES-East)<\/em> Visible, Near-Infrared &#8220;Cirrus&#8221;, Mid-level Water Vapor and Clean Infrared Window images <em><strong>(above)<\/strong><\/em> displayed a set of curved contrails that formed south-southeast of Dallas\/Fort Worth &#8212; created by 2 passenger aircraft in holding patterns, before eventually landing at Houston&#8217;s George Bush Intercontinental Airport (KIAH) &#8212; which then drifted southeast toward the Texas coast on the morning of 16 March 2026.<\/p>\n<p>The curved contrails were also seen in GOES-19 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>(below)<\/strong><\/em>.<\/p>\n<p><div style=\"width: 1325px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/images\/2026\/03\/260316_goes19_trueColorRGB_TX_contrails.mp4\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/images\/2026\/03\/goeseast_abi_radc_true_color_night_20260316140118.png\" width=\"1315\" height=\"743\" \/><\/a><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">5-minute GOES-19 True Color RGB images, from 1301-1501 UTC on 16 March [click to play MP4 animation]<\/p><\/div>Flight track maps from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.flightaware.com\"><strong>FlightAware<\/strong><\/a> showed the holding pattern ovals taken by 2 United Airlines flights (at altitudes of 32000-33000 ft) northwest of KIAH <em><strong>(below)<\/strong><\/em>.<\/p>\n<p><div style=\"width: 3230px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/images\/2026\/03\/260316_UAL1450_flight_track_map.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/images\/2026\/03\/260316_UAL1450_flight_track_map.png\" width=\"3220\" height=\"2104\" \/><\/a><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">UAL1450 fight track map [click to enlarge]<\/p><\/div><br \/>\n<div style=\"width: 3230px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/images\/2026\/03\/260316_UAL1464_flight_track_map.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/images\/2026\/03\/260316_UAL1464_flight_track_map.png\" width=\"3220\" height=\"2104\" \/><\/a><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">UAL1464 flight track map [click to enlarge]<\/p><\/div>A plot of rawinsonde data from Fort Worth at 1200 UTC <strong><em>(below)<\/em><\/strong> showed a moist layer from 294-217 hPa (30000-36000 ft), where these contrails likely developed and persisted.<\/p>\n<p><div style=\"width: 3006px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/images\/2026\/03\/2603165_1200utc_kfwd_raob.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/images\/2026\/03\/2603165_1200utc_kfwd_raob.png\" width=\"2996\" height=\"1676\" \/><\/a><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Plot of rawinsonde data from Fort Worth, Texas at 1200 UTC on 16 March [click to enlarge]<\/p><\/div>Other examples of <a href=\"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/?s=circular+contrail\"><strong>circular contrails<\/strong><\/a> have been previously documented on this blog.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>5-minute GOES-19 (GOES-East) Visible, Near-Infrared &#8220;Cirrus&#8221;, Mid-level Water Vapor and Clean Infrared Window images (above) displayed a set of curved contrails that formed south-southeast of Dallas\/Fort Worth &#8212; created by 2 passenger aircraft in holding patterns, before eventually landing at Houston&#8217;s George Bush Intercontinental Airport (KIAH) &#8212; which then drifted southeast toward the Texas coast [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":69464,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,10,159,45],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-69463","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-aviation","category-general-interpretation","category-goes-19","category-redgreenblue-rgb-images"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69463","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=69463"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69463\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":69474,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69463\/revisions\/69474"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/69464"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=69463"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=69463"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=69463"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}