Summary: (comments are given for each time)
-Widespread blowing dust behind a strong dry line pushing across the western half of Texas
-Compared the two CIRA dust products with AWIPS visible imagery for 3 times on 27 Feb 2011
-Also looked at MODIS true-color visible imagery
Ed,
Yes, I had noticed this the other day also…good that you caught it and posted! These dust events over the desert southwest typcially begin kicking up in the early Spring, tied to the midlatitude cyclone passages. The MODIS product demo’d here is a preview to what we will be able to do in the future with GOES-R ABI, but of course at much, much higher temporal evolution.
By the way, I have a new algorithm in development that essentially does this day and night, also applicable to ABI. We can demo over the states from MODIS, but it can also be demo’d from Geostationary using Meteosat SEVIRI…unfortunately that satellite gives no coverage over the U.S. deserts, but it is great for detecting the plumes coming off N. Africa! Could be useful to NHC in that regard, before the dust gets over the water and the split-window approach (Dunion et al.) becomes most useful.
-steve