Texas Severe Storm during GOES-11 SRSO: 5 May 2009

On 5 May 2009, NESDIS staff at CIRA called for Super Rapid Scan Operations (SRSO) for GOES-11 due to the forecast of severe weather in Texas.  The GOES-11 SRSO activation is in preparation for the VORTEX-II field project so that high temporal resolution satellite imagery is available for this important field project.

During the VORTEX-II field project (May 10 – June 13) , GOES-11 SRSO will be activated on days when RSO schedule is not in use for GOES-11.  The temporal resolution during an SRSO schedule is one-minute data, however, there will not be continuous 1-minute data due to operational scan sectors:

http://www.ssd.noaa.gov/PS/SATS/GOES/WEST/s-srso.html

For this reason, there will be gaps between higher and lower temporal resolution data.

During times of GOES-11 SRSO activation,  the Visible and IR data respectively,  may be viewed on the following web-sites:


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You may also view the data on the GOES West Visible Floater sector on the RSO RAMSDIS online page:

http://rammb.cira.colostate.edu/ramsdis/online/rso.asp

The visible imagery from 5 May 2009 over Texas may be viewed here:


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http://rammb.cira.colostate.edu/projects/svr_vis/srso/5may09/visloop.asp

 On this day, a thunderstorm developed along a low-level convergence boundary and quickly became severe.  Hail up to softball size was reported with this storm.  Note the development of inflow feeder clouds along the southern flank of the storm.  The inflow feeder clouds became evident between 0000 and 0030 UTC 6 May, and afterward can be seen moving quickly towards the storm.  The viewing angle from the GOES west perspective offers a favorable perspective of the inflow feeder clouds. There are occasions when GOES-east data will not show this signature over the central US while GOES-west does due to its more favorable view angle.

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