Author Archives: Ed Szoke

April 27 – Severe weather followed by blowing dust across the Plains

The extensive outbreak of severe weather on Sunday 27 April (see SPC plot of reports below in Figure 1) made headlines with many destructive tornadoes.  A strong cold front associated with an intense low lifting out of the Rockies led … Continue reading

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An even stronger cold front and even more blowing dust – 18 March 2014

In a recent post we showed a dust storm that moved through southeast Colorado and into the Texas Panhandle on 11 March with a strong cold front.  Another cold front, even a bit stronger than the one last week, pushed … Continue reading

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More blowing dust with strong cold front on 11 March 2014

A strong cold front moved south across the High Plains on Tuesday afternoon and evening, bringing an episode of blowing dust with it.  Here we look at what happened and how it appeared with some GOES-R Proving Ground products that … Continue reading

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A look at the 16 Jan 2014 dust storm in eastern Colorado using VIIRS imagery

Strong winds coupled with dry soil led to widespread blowing dust across the eastern plains of Colorado and areas east on Thursday 16 January 2014.  A short video clip shows the blowing dust obscuring visibilities in Logan County in far … Continue reading

Posted in Blowing Dust (Blue-light absorption technique), Blowing Dust Detection (Split-window technique), MODIS Snow/Cloud Discriminator | 1 Comment

Fog and Low Clouds in Eastern Colorado as seen with GeoColor and Day Night Band NPP VIIRS imagery on 20 Dec 2013

The Suomi NPP VIIRS Day/Night Band (DNB), which can use moonlight to produce visible-light imagery during the nighttime, offers a unique capability that is slated to continue on the JPSS constellation concurrent to the GOES-R era.  This presents intriguing potential … Continue reading

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Determining clouds from snow – an example from 5 Dec 2013

As winter continues to settle in across the nation and snow cover increases, an issue that arises is trying to see cloud cover over a snow pack during the daytime with visible satellite imagery, since both appear white.  Certainly looping … Continue reading

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Synthetic imagery for the 3 Dec 2013 fog/low cloud case

The previous blog entry discussed CIRA satellite imagery that can be useful in highlighting fog and low clouds.  These images utilize existing satellite imagery to create images that try to replicate those that will be available in the GOES-R era. … Continue reading

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Widespread Fog East of the Rockies – 3 Dec 2013

Widespread fog and low clouds covered much of the nation east of the Rockies 0n the morning of 3 Dec in the moist airmass ahead of the developing western storm and strong cold front that has since pushed south.  Dense … Continue reading

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