For once, I don’t have all the answers. That’s why I said “aatsuu“. That is an Inuit (Inuktitut) word for “I don’t know.” We’re learning Inuit language today because I wonder how they would describe a recent event in Antarctica. You see, I had been told growing up that the Inuit had more than 30 different… Read more »
You youngins are not old enough to remember, but we took a look at Gough Island before. Well, not directly, but as part of the British territory of Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha eight years ago. We also did a special feature on Saint Helena and… Read more »
There’s an ongoing serious situation in Australia: the bush in New South Wales and Queensland is on fire.
Here’s a look at what the Advanced Himawari Imager (AHI) on Himawari-8 saw on 8 November 2019: click here.
What you… Read more »
As we all know, the furthest south you can travel is to the South Pole – the Geographic South Pole, not the Magnetic South Pole or the Geomagnetic South Pole. When you get there, try to face east if you can. (This is easier to do at the “Read more »
As of the time of this writing, there is currently a humanitarian crisis in Mozambique caused by what was Tropical Cyclone Idai. Here’s the situation as of 25 March 2019.
Wikipedia actually has a pretty detailed history of Idai. Long story short, one of the worst (“worst” meaning… Read more »
A winter storm moved through the Northeast U.S. over the weekend of 19-20 January 2019. This Nor’easter was a tricky one to forecast. Temperatures near the coast were expected to be near (or above) freezing. Temperatures inland were expected to be much colder. Liquid-equivalent precipitation, at least according to the GFS, was… Read more »
Oh, Yakutsk! It has been a long time – 2012, to be exact – since we last spoke about you. It was a different time back then, with me still referring to the Natural Color RGB as “pseudo-true color”. (Now, most National Weather Service forecasters know it as the “Day Land Cloud RGB”). VIIRS was a… Read more »
Roughly one month ago, social media (and, later, more conventional media) outlets were inundated with numerous reports of orange snow in eastern Europe and western Asia – reports like this one, this one and this one. Of course, it wouldn’t really be a hit with the media unless… Read more »
Today, we’re going to take a look at another less-covered VIIRS channel on this blog: M-9, also known as the “cirrus band”. (Disambiguation: if you’re looking for the electronic musical group “Cirrus (band)“, you’re in the wrong place.) We don’t use M-9 on this blog much because it doesn’t often provide amazing images. But, it is… Read more »
I wrote the first post on this blog more than 5.5 years ago. Since then, I have covered a multitude of instances where VIIRS imagery has helped us learn about the world we live on. But, during that time there has been one channel on VIIRS that has never been mentioned. Not once. And, what may be even more surprising… Read more »
In the fast paced world of weather, Hurricane Irma is old news. There’s already a Wikipedia page on it. But, people that were in Irma’s path are still cleaning up (at least at the time I’m writing this). In case you’ve already forgotten, or were living in a Read more »
It’s not often that a new discovery takes place that baffles the minds of lifelong scientists. This is a story about one that seems to have gone viral over the last few days. The abbreviated version (summarized from this article, this article, and this article, and many others… Read more »
Two weeks ago, one of Minnesota’s 10,000 lakes disappeared, leaving them with only 9,999. And, it wasn’t a small one, either. It was the state’s second largest inland lake. But, this is not like Goose Lake, which actually did dry up. The lake in question simply became temporarily invisible. So, no need… Read more »
By now, you probably know the drill: a little bit of discussion about a particular subject, throw in a few pop culture references, maybe a video or two, then get to the good stuff – high quality VIIRS imagery. Then, maybe add some follow-up discussion to emphasize how VIIRS can be used to detect, monitor, or… Read more »
Think of a snowflake. What happens when that snowflake hits the ground? Now, picture other snowflakes – millions of them – all hitting the ground and piling up on top of each other, crushing our first poor snowflake. Skiers love to talk (and dream) about “fresh powder.” But, what happens when the “powder” isn’t so fresh?
Q: When a tree falls in the forest and nobody is around to hear it, does it make a sound?
A: Yes.
That’s an easy question to answer. It’s not a 3000-year-old philosophical conundrum with no answer. Sound is simply a pressure wave moving through some medium (e.g. air, or the ground). A tree falling… Read more »
You may have missed it in the news, but history was made last week:
A plane landed! Wow!
But, that’s not any old plane – that’s the first commercial airliner to land on St. Helena Island, which just completed the construction of their very first airport. That means there may be no more commercial sailing… Read more »
As mentioned before on this blog, there are typhoons, hurricanes, and cyclones, and they’re all basically the same thing. They’re just given a different name depending on where they occur in the world. Similarly, there are many different names for winds (not counting the classification of wind speeds developed by a guy named Read more »
Take a second to think about what would happen if Florida was hit by four hurricanes in one month.
Would the news media get talking heads from both sides to argue whether or not global warming is real by yelling at each other until they have to cut to a commercial? Would Jim Cantore Read more »
As we begin 2016, struggling to get back into the swing of things at work and vowing not to overeat or over-drink ever again, it’s appropriate to bid farewell to 2015 – not just for all the weird weather events that we covered on this blog over the year, but also for the weird, wacky weather… Read more »
We’ve poked a lot of fun at China and their serious smog problem. (Just this week, Beijing schools had their very first “smog day.” It’s just like a “snow day”, except you can’t go outside and write your name in it.) But, as it turns out, China is not the only country… Read more »
A Morning Glory is a lot of things: a flower, a town in Kentucky, a popular choice for song and album titles, and – what is most relevant for us – it’s a rare atmospheric phenomenon that is both beautiful and potentially deadly.
For… Read more »
We mentioned India earlier this year due to a hellish heatwave. It’s only fair that we talk about one of the other cradles of civilization (human history) and another horrible weather-related h-word.
People have been living along the Nile River in northeastern Africa and on the Arabian Peninsula for thousands of years… Read more »
We’ve covered mysteries before on this website. Well, here’s one from 150 years ago:
The emigrants, coming west on the Applegate Trail to Oregon in the 1870s, were puzzled. The trail was, of course, a seemingly unending set of wagon-wheel ruts stretching from the jumping-off points in the Midwest over deserts and… Read more »
Have you ever slept in a really hot room?
Of course, if you clicked on that link, keep in mind two things: perjury is a crime, and extreme heat is no joke. It is number one on the list of causes of weather-related fatalities. It may not capture the attention of the… Read more »
Think back to St. Patrick’s Day. Do you remember what you were doing? Hopefully you were wearing something green. And, hopefully, you didn’t leave anything green in the gutter behind the bar (e.g. undigested lunch or beverages or a mixture of the two). If you did, we don’t want to hear about it. It’s unpleasant enough that you had to… Read more »
You may or may not have heard that a small town in Italy received 100 inches (250 cm; 2.5 m; 8⅓ feet; 8 x 10-17 parsecs) of snow in 18 hours just last week (5 March 2015). That’s a lot of snow! It’s more than what fell on İnebolu, Turkey back in… Read more »
Take a look at this VIIRS “Natural Color” image and see if you can find Pitcairn Island. It’s in there somewhere:
You’re definitely going to want to click through to the full resolution version. (Click on the image, then click again.) You won’t be able to see it otherwise. Take your time. Note: this is actually… Read more »
Take a look at this image:
Is this picture from A) the Keweenaw Peninsula of Michigan in 1978? B) Orchard Park, New York in November 2014 (aka “Snowvember”)? or C) İnebolu, Turkey from just last week?
If you pay attention to details, you will have noticed that I… Read more »
Quick: what was the name of that Icelandic volcano that caused such a stir a few years ago? Oh, that’s right. You don’t remember. No one remembers. (Unless you live outside the U.S. in a place where you might have actually heard someone say the name correctly.) To Americans, it will forever be known as “That Icelandic Volcano” or “The… Read more »
OK, so there probably aren’t any “Canadatowns” in China like there are Chinatowns in Canada. (Now you’re probably wondering what a Canadatown in China would look like. Maybe stores and restaurants selling poutine and maple syrup? Hockey rinks and curling sheets everywhere? A
Have you noticed it? The seasons are changing (for the mid- and high latitudes, at least). Days are getting shorter (or longer if you live in the upside-down hemisphere). This time of year, if you live in Alaska or Scandinavia or similar high latitude locations, you lose about 5-10 minutes of available daylight each day. (That’s between a half and… Read more »
Conspiracy theorists will tell you that conspiracies exist everywhere; that they’re part of daily life; and that most people are ignorant of all the attempts by various governments around the world to covertly control every facet of your life. Only they know the truth. But, that’s just what they want you to believe! Conspiracy theorists are simply manipulating you in… Read more »
No, I’m not talking about Chinatown in Vancouver. Or Chinatown in Toronto. Or any other Chinatown in Canada. I’m talking about this. Or, more exactly, this. Poor air quality is making it difficult to breathe in Canada and elsewhere.
Unlike the situation in China,… Read more »
When was the last time you heard anything about Paraguay? Nope – they weren’t in the World Cup, that was Uruguay. (Paraguay actually finished last out of all South American teams when it came to World Cup qualifying. Sorry to remind you, Paraguayans.) A… Read more »
Not having full command of the German language, “sehr schweres Unwetter” seems like an understatement. It translates as “very bad thunderstorm,” which in this case is like calling the Titanic a “very big boat”. Of course, if you live in the Great Plains, you probably refer to a supercell thunderstorm as “a little bit of rain… Read more »
So far (*knock on wood*), it’s been a pretty quiet year for severe weather. If you only count tornadoes, there have been 81 tornado reports from 1 January to 4 April this year. (11 of those have come just this week.) This is a lot fewer than the previous three year average… Read more »
This has been some kind of winter. The media has focused a lot of attention on the super-scary “Polar Vortex” even though it isn’t that scary or that rare. (I wonder if Hollywood will make it the subject of the next big horror movie in time for Halloween.) Many parts of Alaska have… Read more »
Nope. This post is not about a warplane, an alcoholic beverage or a “New Wave” band from the 1970s. (Those are all B-52s.) And I’m not talking about a county road in Michigan or a New York City bus line…. Read more »
If you pay attention to tropical cyclones, that headline may be confusing. Unlike the Super Cyclone in the Indian Ocean we just looked at, Super Typhoons are not rare in the Pacific Ocean. There have been 5 of them this year. What is rare is a typhoon that is estimated to be… Read more »
The Indian Ocean has just had its first Super Cyclone since 2007. The name of it is “Phailin” and I bet you just pronounced it incorrectly (unless you speak Thai). It’s closer to “PIE-leen” than it is to “FAY-lin”. The name was derived from the Thai word for sapphire. (If you go to Google Translate and… Read more »
A year’s worth of precipitation fell on parts of Colorado in one week’s time (9 September to 17 September 2013). As Colorado State Climatologist Nolan Doesken said, “Whenever you get your annual precip in a few days time, you’re in trouble.” So it is that this blog returns to flooding once again. Flooding that hit real close to home.
If… Read more »
Sorry, I couldn’t help myself with that title. Last time we looked at flooding in Russia, it was in the western parts – generally near Moscow and primarily along the Oka River – and caused by rapid melting of record spring snowfall. This time, flooding is occurring in Russia’s Far East, primarily along the Read more »
Hopefully, Google Translate didn’t steer me wrong on the meaning of “abafado”. “Bruma seca” is a term used by Portuguese and Spanish speakers that literally translates to “dry mist”. It is typically used to refer to thick haze or the brownish air caused by dust and, more specifically, to the Saharan Air Layer (scroll down a… Read more »
The last two posts covered flooding. Now, a month later, we are back to covering last year’s most common topic: wildfires. This time, we’ll make a game out of it. Keep in mind that, for many operational fire weather forecasters, this isn’t a game – it is information that could prove useful in saving lives or homes from destruction. If… Read more »
It seems that last year’s posts were all about fires. Fires in Colorado (multiple fires, in fact), the Canary Islands, Siberia, Australia – there was even that 40-year-old pit of burning natural gas that has been… Read more »
The week beginning on 14 April 2013 was a big week for weather across the United States. There were 30 reports of tornadoes. (Make sure you click on each link, and look at the filtered reports.) And, when our home base of Fort Collins,… Read more »
Science fiction fanatics know it as “Middle-earth“. Abel Tasman, the Dutch explorer who became the first European to sail there, called it “Staten Landt“, which was later changed to Nieuw Zeeland, Nova Zeelandia, and, finally, New Zealand. The native Maori people call it “Aotearoa“, which loosely translates to… Read more »
No, not a Super-Smörg, super smog. Smog that is so thick, you can taste it. The smog in many parts of eastern China has been so bad this winter, it is literally “off-the-charts“. Based on our Environmental Protection Agency‘s not-very-intuitive Read more »
Do rocks float? The answer to that is “Depends on which rocks you’re talking about.”
We just looked at what happens in the atmosphere when a volcano like Copahue erupts. We also looked at the impact the 1912 eruption of Novarupta still has today. And, before VIIRS was launched into space, there… Read more »
On the border between Chile and Argentina sits the volcano Copahue. (If you say it out loud, it is pronounced “CO-pa-hway”.) In the local Mapuche language, copahue means “sulfur water”. This name was given to the volcano as the most active crater contains a highly acidic lake full of sulfur. An eruption in 1992 filled the… Read more »
Much of the United States has had a below-average amount of snow this fall (and below-average precipitation for the whole year). Look at how little snow cover there was in the month of November. Parts of Europe, however, have seen snow. It’s nice to know that it’s falling… Read more »
Lost in all the commotion caused by Hurricane Sandy, a curious event occurred on the other side of the country on 30 October 2012. A cloud of ash obscured the skies of Kodiak Island, Alaska, diverting flights in the region and forcing the people of Kodiak to stay inside or wear masks…. Read more »
“At 10 o’clock the Captain was walking on deck and saw what he supposed to be an immense iceberg. … the atmosphere was hazy, and then a heavy snow squall came up which shut it out entirely from our view. Not long after the sun shone again, and I went up again and with the glass, tried to get… Read more »
Last time we visited Greenland, it was because VIIRS saw evidence of the rapid ice melt event in July 2012. We return to Greenland because of this visible image VIIRS captured on 18 October 2012:
This image was taken by the high-resolution visible channel, I-01 (0.64 µm), and was cropped down to reduce the file size…. Read more »
How fast does an aurora move? I “googled” it, and got answers ranging from “fast” to “very fast”. Not very scientific. It also doesn’t help that the majority of aurora videos on the Internet are time-lapse footage, and there’s no way to know how fast the footage has been sped up. Although,… Read more »
I’m not talking about a Subaru. I’m talking about the vast expanse of sparsely-populated Australia. We’ve already seen fires in the United States, Russia and the Canary Islands. Well, they have been happening down under, too. (Is there any part of this planet not currently experiencing a drought?)
VIIRS has seen Hell and, luckily, it did not get scared. No, I’m not talking about Hell, Michigan, which is actually a nice place (and not as scary as their website would indicate). I’m talking about the Gates of Hell (or Door to Hell, depending on who you talk to) in Turkmenistan…. Read more »
While Hurricane Isaac (then a tropical storm) did not destroy Tampa, Florida as many people feared, it certainly left its mark on the Gulf Coast. With many locations from Florida to Louisiana receiving more than 12″ of rain, and levees unable to keep out the storm surge, flooding was (and still is)… Read more »
Sometimes, it seems like the whole world is on fire. Siberia. The western United States (which has been burning for some time). And now, the Canary Islands. The Spanish islands have been… Read more »
Raise your hand if you’ve only ever heard of Yakutsk because of the board game “Risk”. (If you raised your hand, you might want to look around and make sure that no-one saw you raise your hand for no reason.) Yakutsk is actually the capital city of the Sakha Republic (a.k.a. Yakutia),… Read more »
First, a preface: The purpose of this blog (and this blog post) is not to ignite some debate about global warming. This is about what one new satellite instrument has observed and the information it is providing to the scientific community.
With that out of the way, we can begin.
You may have heard on the news a story about… Read more »
It’s been a while since we last looked at some tropical cyclones with VIIRS. If you don’t keep up to date on tropical activity, you might not know there that have been a few. Granted, since Debby dumped a bunch of rain on Florida three weeks ago, the Atlantic basin has been… Read more »
Are you tired of 100 °F heat? We sure are in Colorado. Denver tied an all-time record of five consecutive days of 100+ °F high temperatures this week (two of which had the all-time highest recorded temperature of 105 °F). Much of the country experienced record-breaking heat as well. What better place to escape the heat… Read more »
Last time on “Wild Week of Wildfires“, we looked at the Little Bear Fire and High Park Fire, two lightning-ignited fires burning out west that were so hot they caused saturation in the two 3.7 µm channels on VIIRS (I-04 and M-12). There was mention of the Duck Lake Fire, a lightning-ignited… Read more »
The last few weeks have been filled with lightning-ignited wildfires across the United States. The County Line Fire, along the Florida-Georgia border was caused by lightning on 5 April 2012 and burned ~35,000 acres. The Whitewater-Baldy Complex (began 16 May 2012) – the largest wildfire in New Mexico history – started as… Read more »
Cape Verde is an island nation off the west coast of Africa, located in the North Atlantic. The islands are a popular initiation point for tropical storms. The original capital of the 10-island archipelago was sacked twice by Sir Francis Drake, the same one who, in his later years, would fail to… Read more »
You may have noticed that many of the recent posts have featured imagery from the VIIRS Day/Night Band (DNB). That’s because the nighttime imagery produced by the DNB is so awesome! The DNB has seen clouds at night, auroras, forest fires, oil and gas flares, and even
According to reports, a man camping along the Hewlett Gulch trail in Roosevelt National Forest on 14 May 2012 had his camping stove knocked over in a gust of wind. One week (and $2.9 million) later, the Hewlett Fire scorched more than 7600 acres before fire crews could gain the upper hand…. Read more »
According to legend, Popocatépetl was a great warrior whose girlfriend, Iztaccíhuatl, died because her father was a jerk who lied. (An alternate story is that it was a rival warrior who was a jerk who lied.) Either way, Iztaccíhuatl was erroneously told that Popocatépetl died in battle, which caused her to die of grief. When Popoca,… Read more »
With the I-bands having ~375 m resolution at nadir, VIIRS is a powerful instrument. We have already seen the detailed imagery it produces of severe thunderstorms and tropical cyclones. But, you might ask (particularly if you’re thinking you need a vacation), what remote islands is it able to see?
Well, it can see Easter Island. Yes, Read more »
The second major tornado outbreak of the year took place on 14 April 2012 (after the 2 March outbreak that slammed Indiana and Kentucky). At last count, 115 tornadoes were reported from Oklahoma to Iowa. Credit must be given to the Storm Prediction Center, National Weather Service offices, and local TV and… Read more »
On 5 April 2012, the Joint Typhoon Warning Center was watching an area of the Mozambique Channel for possible development of a tropical cyclone. This area was named Invest 97S. As 6 April 2012 was a full moon, this is a good case to test the capabilities of low-light visible imagery channels for detection of tropical cyclone development at night.
On 26 March 2012, strong winds, high temperatures and low humidities re-ignited embers from a controlled burn that took place the previous week near Conifer, CO. The Lower North Fork fire quickly spread in the high winds, eventually burning more than 4000 acres and damaging or destroying 27 homes. Three people were killed, presumably because they… Read more »
On 18 March 2012, very warm, very dry and very windy conditions existed throughout eastern Colorado. Surface observations showed temperatures in the 70s and 80s, dew points in the teens and 20s, and sustained winds at 20-30 knots (gusting over 40 knots). Wind gusts up to 60 knots (~70 mph) were reported.
A red flag warning was issued for nearly… Read more »
On 6 March 2012, a massive solar flare erupted and an associated coronal mass ejection was launched toward Earth. Video of the solar flare from NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory can be viewed here. NOAA’s Space Weather Center forecast the coronal mass ejection to reach Earth on 8 March 2012, which you can… Read more »
NPP/VIIRS passed over Southern Indiana on March 2 about thirty minutes before the most devastating tornadoes struck the towns of New Pekin and Henryville (among others). At 1935 UTC, a pair of rotating thunderstorms, also known as supercells, were advancing eastward across Indiana. The easternmost storm spawned the most damaging tornadoes. Below is a VIIRS true color image from the… Read more »
It’s not every day the official National Weather Service forecast from Honolulu, HI calls for freezing rain and snow in parts of Hawaii, but that’s what happened 19 February 2012 for the Big Island. Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea both received snow over the last 24 hours, and VIIRS shows both volcanoes are covered with the white stuff.
The top… Read more »
Back in January, Madagascar was brushed by tropical cyclone Funso, which caused periods of heavy rain, but was a bigger deal for neighboring Mozambique. This time around, Madagascar took a direct hit from tropical cyclone Giovanna, which reached “Super Cyclone” status as category 4 storm just prior to making landfall.
VIIRS got a great look at Giovanna while it was… Read more »
This squall line had several overshooting tops over the Gulf of Mexico that reached a temperature of -77 C. A zoomed-in view of these tops are shown below.
The dark blue pixels near the center of the image indicate an overshooting top approximately 5 km in diameter where temperatures were less than -77 C. Several pixels in a storm top… Read more »