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RAMMB: GOES-R Proving Ground Blog

  • Potential challenges of interpreting water vapor imagery: A tropical moisture case over San Diego on 21 Sep 2016

    While water vapor imagery is no doubt very useful for forecasting, it can at times be tricky to interpret.  This blog discusses a particularly challenging case over Southern California on 21 September 2016, when deep tropical moisture produced a rain event for San Diego.  Even though the environment was very moist, indeed the precipitable water (PW) was a record for the date, GOES-15 water vapor imagery (with a central wavelength of 6.7 microns) implied a “dry” atmosphere.  GOES-R (now GOES-16) has 3 water vapor channels, one that senses higher in the atmosphere and the other lower than what is currently on GOES.…

  • Challenging forecast for Colorado mountains snow event of 5 December 2016

    On 5 December 2016, a significant storm was approaching the mountains of Colorado with various NWS winter weather watches/warnings posted for 6 December.  This snow event on 5 December occurred ahead of the storm in what looked like drying conditions behind a fast moving shortwave.  The GOES satellite imagery seemed to support the idea of drying on 5 December in all 3 available GOES Sounder water vapor channels.  However, enough low-level moisture remained in the presence of low/mid level steep lapse rates to produce this storm before the storm  on 5 December (generally around 6 inches at most ski resorts in…

  • 1-minute imagery of warm conveyor belt on 1-2 February 2016 winter storm

      A winter storm that passed through Colorado on 1-2 February 2016 resulted in significant snowfall over northern / northeast Colorado: One of the key aspects of this extra-tropical cyclone was the development of a warm conveyor belt (Harrold 1973).  The 4-km NSSL WRF-ARW synthetic water vapor imagery from the 0000 UTC 1 February run valid 1800 UTC 1 Feb to 0600 UTC 2 Feb: http://rammb.cira.colostate.edu/templates/loop_directory.asp?data_folder=training/visit/loops/1feb16_syn_wv&number_of_images_to_display=13 forecasts what appears to be a warm conveyor belt (WCB) by around 0100 UTC 2 Feb, highlighted here:   Keep in mind, one the of the limitations of the synthetic water vapor imagery from…

  • Himawari imagery of 924 mb low in the Pacific

    At 0600 UTC 13 December 2015, the NOAA Ocean Prediction Center analyzed a 924 mb surface low in the north Pacific in the vicinity of the western Aleutian islands: The analyzed minimum central pressure of 924 mb ties the record for lowest pressure in the north Pacific during the period of record (since the winter of 1969-1970). Satellite imagery from the new Japanese satellite (Himawari-8) provided a spectacular perspective of this cyclogenesis event.  First, we will look at the larger scale by analyzing the RGB airmass product (please allow sufficient time for this loop to load): http://rammb.cira.colostate.edu/templates/loop_directory.asp?data_folder=training/visit/loops/13dec15_rgb_airmass&number_of_images_to_display=436&loop_speed_ms=50 Warmer air is…

  • Himawari-8 True Color / Geocolor product

    CIRA now provides Himawari-8 daytime true color imagery and nighttime geocolor imagery: http://rammb.cira.colostate.edu/templates/loop_directory.asp?data_folder=training/visit/loops/12nov15_tc_gc&number_of_images_to_display=70 The example above begins at 0230 UTC 12 November 2015 with most of the scene in daylight, therefore true color imagery is shown.  The CIRA Hybrid Atmospherically Corrected (HAC) method is applied to produce this “true color” imagery. The Hybrid Atmospherically Corrected (HAC) true color method uses the red, green, and blue Himawari bands, in addition to some information from bands 4 (0.86 micrometers) and 13 (10.4 micrometers).  A Rayleigh correction is performed at each band in order to correct for the effects of Rayleigh scattering.  The…

  • GOES-14 SRSOR 1-minute visible imagery for 19 May 2015 over Texas

    GOES-14 will be in Super Rapid Scan Operations for GOES-R (SRSOR) mode between 18 May – 12 June, 2015.  This special mode allows for 1-minute temporal imagery for GOES, similar to what will be available when GOES-R becomes available in 2016. We will discuss the 1-minute imagery over Texas on 19 May, 2015. First, we will look at the early period between 1730 to 1940 UTC: http://rammb.cira.colostate.edu/templates/loop_directory.asp?data_folder=training/visit/loops/19may15_vis1&number_of_images_to_display=103&loop_speed_ms=100 Regions of convection at this time include: 1) southeast Texas (moving southeast), which leaves behind a stable air mass (clear area to its northwest) 2) central Oklahoma 3) eastern Texas panhandle moving into…

  • Synthetic imagery from the 4-km NSSL WRF-ARW model for the 22 April 2015 severe weather event

    This blog entry consists of a youtube video: http://youtu.be/2-3xVFXdw-o  

  • 10 November 2014 Colorado Dust Storm Matched to Aircraft Photo

    By Steve Miller (CIRA) This blog entry is in Powerpoint show format, click on the link below to view the Powerpoint show: Powerpoint show file

  • Leeside cold front of 10 November 2014: Blowing dust and deep-tropospheric gravity waves

    A strong cold front pushed southward across the Plains during the day on November 10, 2014.  The temperature gradient across the front was quite dramatic, as seen by the surface observations at 23:00 UTC: Visible imagery from GOES-East during the afternoon hours centered over Colorado clearly showed the southward progress of the cold front as dust was being lofted at the edge of the cold front where surface winds are strongest: http://rammb.cira.colostate.edu/templates/loop_directory.asp?data_folder=training/visit/loops/10nov14_vis&number_of_images_to_display=21 Note the rapid movement of the cold front as it moves from southeast Colorado towards northeast New Mexico as you can easily trace it by the blowing dust.…

  • Convective Initiation Application via the Split Window Difference product

    One of the exciting new products that will be available on GOES-R is the split window difference (SWD) which is simply the difference between the 10.35 micron and 12.3 micrometer channels.  This channel difference has been shown to provide information about atmospheric column water vapor.  Higher SWD values (larger positive difference) can correspond to deepener low-level moisture in a cloud-free environment.  This signature can be utilized to anticipate where and when convective initiation will occur in cloud-free conditions away from complex terrain (such as the Great Plains).  Although similar bands were available on some previous GOES instruments, their coarse resolution…

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