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RAMMB: GOES-R Proving Ground Blog

  • GOES-14 SRSO for 11 May 2014 Severe Weather Event

    GOES-14 was operating on super rapid scan operations schedule for May 11, 2014, meaning that images were being taken every 1 minute.  This high temporal resolution data will be routinely available for severe weather events with GOES-R, therefore it is beneficial to learn how to maximize the value added by this dataset.  SPC issued a moderate risk for portions of Nebraska and Kansas which will be the focus here.  The GOES visible imagery from 1838 to 2011 UTC is shown here: http://ga2.cira.colostate.edu/Lindsey/11may14_g14_vis_loop.gif To aid in interpretation of this loop, an annotated image is shown: Around this time, a southwest-northeast oriented…

  • More dust – this time amidst the clouds – 29 April 2014 case

    A recent post took a look at the CIRA dust products for the widespread blowing dust event across the Southern Plains behind a strong cold front on 27 April.  The associated upper-level trough moved into the middle of the nation and became a giant closed low that stalled for days.  Figure 1 shows the position of the closed 500 mb low along with an analysis of sea level pressure and NOWRAD radar reflectivity for midweek (0000 UTC on 30 April).  The giant upper-level low affected the weather across much of the nation; here we focus on the strong northerly winds…

  • 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 to the large outbreak (Figure 2 shows the low at 1200 UTC Monday morning 28 April).  Meanwhile very strong winds behind the front produced a large area of blowing dust across the Southern Plains.  In this blog entry we will take a look at this dust area through some satellite products designed to highlight blowing dust. Figure 1.  Plot of…

  • 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 southward through the same area almost exactly one week later as a deepening surface low emerged from the Rockies into the South-Central Plains (see Figure 1 below).  Here we will again take a look at the CIRA Proving Ground Pink and Yellow Dust Products from MODIS. A closer look at the area of interest is shown in Figures 2 and…

  • 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 highlight blowing dust.  The sequence of surface maps displayed below in Figure 1 show the southward plunge across the plains east of the Front Range, with very strong northerly winds pushing the cold air rapidly southward.  It appears that the strongest northerly winds (20 to 30 knots sustained with gusts over 40 knots) occur behind the initial frontal surge. One…

  • Great Lakes Ice Cover

    The exceptionally cold winter over the Great Lakes region has led to relatively high ice coverage across the Great Lakes.  The GLERL analysis of ice cover percentage across the Great Lakes is 91% as of March 4: To put this into a historical perspective, the ice coverage across the Great Lakes is highest since 1980 according to this image from the Canadian Ice Service (Environment Canada): The highest Great Lakes ice coverage is just prior to the above graph at 95% set in 1979. Given the historical level of ice coverage across the Great Lakes, it is of interest to…

  • 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 northeastern Colorado (see www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxMdMTzlRFI ).  The lowered visibilities in the blowing dust resulted in a multi-car accident that closed Interstate 70 near Burlington Colorado (close to the Kansas border) for several hours from 11:30 AM MST to 4:25 PM (1830 to 2325 UTC).  A story of the dust storm and the accidents that closed Interstate 70,  courtesy of Denver 7…

  • 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 for synergy between the DNB and Advanced Baseline Imager.  One can use the imagery just as visible imagery is currently used in the daytime, so there are many applications.  Here we show how fog and low clouds distinctly appear during the nighttime hours using the DNB imagery, shown below first on a larger scale and then zoomed in over Colorado.…

  • Orographic Cirrus of 18 December 2013

    Orographic cirrus (i.e., mountain wave) clouds can have a significant influence on temperature forecasts, particularly during the cold season when a reduction in insolation can drastically affect temperatures during the daytime. On December 18, 2013 the CIRA synthetic 4-km NSSL-WRF ARW and NAM-Nest initialized at 0000 UTC 18 December forecasted orographic cirrus downwind of the Front Range of Colorado during the early morning hours: http://rammb.cira.colostate.edu/templates/loop_directory.asp?data_folder=training/visit/loops/18dec13_synthetic&image_width=1020&image_height=900 the synthetic NSSL WRF-ARW is shown on the left, while the synthetic NAM-Nest is shown on the right, the loop spans from 0900 UTC 18 December – 0300 UTC 19 December (9 to 27 hr…

  • 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 the imagery can help although issues can still remain.  Snow cover can have a significant effect on the local weather, including influencing both maximum and minimum temperatures, so it is important to determine the status of snow on the ground. There are various methods that can be used to help discriminate clouds from snow cover, requiring information from different channels…

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