VISIT: Meteorological Interpretation Blog

Over the past few weeks, fires have erupted and spewed high concentrations of smoke over western Canada and the United States. To exacerbate the situation, more fires initiated recently in the western U.S. National Weather Service (NWS) Weather Forecast Offices (WFO) highlighted the High-Resolution Rapid Refresh (HRRR) – Smoke products on social media to warn Continue Reading

It is that time of year again! The time of year where tropical storms, hurricanes initiate and permeate through the Atlantic and the East Pacific Oceans. Currently, a few to note are tropical depression Greg, Tropical Storm Irwin and Hurricane Hilary. A screenshot of the National Hurricane Center’s  (NHC) ‘Active Storm’ Map showing the relative Continue Reading

Dan Bikos Typhoon Jelawat developed in the Phillippine Sea of the western Pacific Ocean around September 20, 2012.  See the westernmost track of the figure below: As the cyclone began turning towards the north / northwest while it was east of the Philippines, it went through rapid intensification.  In order to address the rapid intensification, Continue Reading

By J. Braun Additional information/images from  – Steven Miller, Bernie Connell, Dan Lindsey, and NASA Figure 1(above). Eleven crew members of the state of the art floating oil rig “Deepwater Horizon” are now presumed dead following an explosion on the rig which then caught fire, burned for two days, then sank in 5,000 ft of water Continue Reading

Jeff Braun and Louie Grasso Figures 1-4 show Modis images at 3.9, 8.53, 11.02, and 12.03 µm, respectively at 1825 UTC on 6 April 2010. Off the east coast of the United States, two ocean currents are evident in the imagery: The cool, southward flowing, Labrador current and the warm, northerly flowing, Gulf Stream. All Continue Reading

Figure 1: March 3rd through March 8th 2010 (NexSat Project/Naval Research Laboratory) J. Braun Whew!  Hints at spring may finally be around the corner.  Cold Arctic winter temperatures through most of the beginning of this new year have kept much of the Great Lakes in frozen repair through early March.  However, a hopefull proxy for spring is showing itself in the Continue Reading

Louie Grasso, Dan Lindsey, J. Braun GOES-R ABI will have several channels in the window region from which channel difference products can be produced. Three of the channels, 8.53, 11.02, and 12.03 µm are available from MODIS. From these three channels, three channel differences can be produced. In this example, one of the channel differences Continue Reading

(Courtesy NASA/MODIS/TERRA – July 26, 2008) Jeff Braun Currently, California has 26 fire incidents…mostly across the northern half of the state.  Fourteen of these fires are considered large at the moment (= or > 100 acres…see following map). To date (this fire season – through July 30, 2008), over 750,000 acres of California have burned. Continue Reading

(Image courtesy of Eric Thaler, SOO WFO DEN/BOU.  Data source – NOAA/NWS; Map – FEMA) Jeff Braun Thursday, May 22, 2008 was truly a day the will live in infamy for many folks in and around the communities of western Weld County (and north eastern Larimer county), Colorado.  While the city of Windsor, Colorado sustained Continue Reading

Jeff Braun Many large fires in southern/southeastern Russia have choked the skies with smoke. This image (first image) of the fires (locations outlined in red) was captured by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite late last week (April 17, 2008). Most of these fires are  agricultural fires set by people, much as we do Continue Reading