GOES-East satellite capturing snow, contrails, and more!

Yesterday we saw snow cover over Arkansas and eastern Texas and Oklahoma on satellite imagery. This morning, more cool-ness from 22,500 miles up! A visible shot from GOES-East shows snow cover in northeast AR that is not obscured by clouds (the brighter white area), contrails from jet airplanes at cruise altitude, thin cirrus overhead the snow/contrails as high level moisture streams over the area, and even marine cumulus clouds created by 35-40 degree air blowing over much warmer water in the Gulf!  Click the image for a full-size version with more detail.


--Erik Proseus, MWN Meteorologist

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GOES-14 comes out of hibernation to produce stunning satellite imagery

I wanted to share the image below for a couple of reasons.  If you aren't familiar with it, this is a "full disk" satellite image.  GOES (or geo-synchronous orbiting satellites) orbit the Earth in one spot (hence their orbits are synchronized with the rotation of the Earth) at an altitude of 22,500 miles.  They not only take sectorized images of portions of the Earth on routine basis, but every 3 hours (typically), they take one gigantic picture of the entire Earth - a full disk image.

The full-disk image below was taken by GOES-14 at 12:45pm CDT today.  Why is this important?  Because ordinarily it wouldn't have taken it.  The satellite that would normally take this picture, GOES-13 (or GOES-East, covering the eastern U.S. and Atlantic), went belly-up yesterday!  For over 18 hours, meteorologists were left scrounging for occasional and partial images of the eastern U.S. from other satellites.  

Finally, at 12:45pm, GOES-14 was awaken out of "standby" mode by NOAA satellite engineers in the U.S.  to provide backup (mutual aid as firefighters might call it) so they could figure out what was going on with GOES-13.  The image below was the first provided by the backup satellite.

The other interesting thing about this picture is circled and labelled.  If you ever wondered how minuscule we and our local weather are compared to, well, the entire globe, look closely at this image.  A little speck of white (circled in red) was our morning cloud cover and showers and thunderstorms that passed by just to our southwest, from east-central AR into northwest MS.  In the grand scheme of this image, they're nothing. To those in AR who received hail, lightning and thunder, and heavy rain, they were disruptive.  Now pretend you're a computer model and this is one of your inputs.  What forecast do you produce for Memphis, TN?  Typically a very accurate one, which I find simply stunning! 

Click the image for a large view and check out the detail - again, from 22,500 miles in the sky!

GOES-14 first full disk image out of standby mode - September 24, 2012, 12:45pm CDT (17:45 UTC)

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Now you see it, now you don't! Snow disappears from satellite imagery

This morning, I described a satellite image that showed snow cover over all of west Tennessee. Well, we all know what happens to snow as temperatures rise into the 40s!  Check out the before and after pictures below.  The top image is from 8:15am (used in this morning's blog), the bottom is from 4:00pm. SnOMG - it's gone!  Now you see it, now you don't!

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Snow cover on Wednesday morning satellite imagery

One nice thing about clear skies after a snowfall (besides that it means it's over!) is the ability to see the extent of the snow cover on satellite imagery.  Below is one of the first visible satellite images available this morning in which west Tennessee, most of Mississippi, and all of Arkansas are experiencing clear skies.

Sometimes it is difficult to separate clouds from snow, so I have done it for you!  If you click the image for a larger version, you'll see that the southwest corner of Tennessee (where Memphis is) has varying degrees of "whiteness".  At the point where MS, TN, and AR come together, there is almost no snow on the ground, while northeast Shelby County has white ground.  This jives well with snow reports, in which streets were whitened in Arlington and Lakeland and nothing was on the ground in western and southern parts of Memphis.  You'll also see the north MS have very little snow cover, other than areas bordering TN, and except far eastern AR, it too is snow-free!  Can you see why forecasting snow can be very difficult, given the outcome of this storm?

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Southeast U.S. snow cover still evident from 22,000 miles up!

Snow remains on the ground across much of the interior southeast more than 72 hours after the winter storm dropped 3-10"+ across the region, thanks to bitterly cold temperatures. Visible satellite imagery taken at 12:45pm today (and marked up by MWN) shows the snow cover well. Some thin clouds are skirting by in the northern portion of the image as well as over the Gulf of Mexico, otherwise all areas within the blue outline are snow as seen from 22,000 miles up. Click the image for a larger version.

Notice the darker "rope-like" lines in the snow - they are unfrozen waterways (rivers). Also, while it appears much more snow is present across east AR and northwest MS than in northeast MS, the opposite is actually true. Because of the flat farmland in AR and northwest AR, the snow is more readily visible than forested areas of northeast MS, where the tree canopy obscures snow on the ground below!

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Mid-South and national snow cover

The January 2011 snow storm (or Mid-South Snow-pocalypse or snOMG) has let it's mark on the region though things are starting to get back to normal. Most kids in the metropolitan area are back in school, though a few districts have one more snow day today, especially in north Mississippi, which bore the brunt of this storm. Roads are in fair to good shape and improving, even though temperatures are brutally cold, creating some patchy black ice where snowmelt has occurred on bridges and overpasses. So, I figured it would be a good time to re-visit snow amounts and take a look at some pretty pictures! (Click any of them for larger images.)

First, a graphic produced by NWS-Memphis that was posted here originally on Monday, along with Mid-South snow totals. This one gives a great look at snow totals across the Memphis county warning area:

Next, we take a look at how the Mid-South plays into the bigger picture. As of midnight Monday night/Tuesday morning, 49 of 50 states (yes, including Hawaii) had snow cover! Florida was the only state without snow. Here's a snow cover maps for the continental U.S.:

And regional zooms over the Ohio/Mid-Mississippi Valleys and the Deep South:

Finally, it's always interesting to look at actual pictures of snow from space. Here's a visible imagery shot taken just before the sunset on Tuesday, as clouds cleared out from our area, from the GOES-East spacecraft. Areas east of the yellow line are cloud-covered, areas west are clear, making it easy to pick out the snow, especially over the Mississippi Delta (southwest of Memphis) and eastern Arkansas.

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Radar & satellite detect large outflow boundary nearing the metro

A large thunderstorm complex rumbled through the Ohio Valley overnight, producing a very large outflow boundary that can easily be seen on visible satellite this morning, as well as on Memphis-based radar. The first image above shows the visible satellite as of about 7:30am. Note the roughly east-west cloud line across the middle of west TN and northeast AR, extending back into the Ozarks. The radar image below that is from 8:05am and shows a dark blue (with a little green) line from Milan to north of Covington to Marked Tree and on to near Searcy.

The outflow boundary is a wind shift with slightly drier and cooler air (very slightly) behind it according to weather observations on the back side of it. It is a line of convergence in the lower atmosphere so it has produced a line of clouds that can be seen on satellite and radar. The radar signature is also enhanced by dust, bugs, and other very lightweight objects that are picked up by the wind along the front/outflow.

This outflow will likely move through the metro area in the next hour or so, but other than some clouds, I expect little effect on our sensible weather (temperature, humidity) other than a temporary wind shift to the north. The outflow will likely weaken as it continues to move south, but could be enough to be the spark for isolated t'storms this afternoon, likely across north MS.

For a current looping radar view of the outflow, click "Current Radar and Satellite" on the tab above or click here.

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Interesting cloud phenomena to start the day

Did you see it? If you're not an avid weather watcher, or even if you are, you may have missed it.

Just after sunrise this morning (Tuesday, May 18), a narrow band of stratus clouds set up over eastern Shelby County extending from north to south. From the pictures taken below (minus the surrounding landscape), you might first guess that these were taken along the California coastline, or in San Francisco Bay. Au contraire!

This narrow band of low stratus clouds, with bases at about 1,500 feet, set up over Lakeland south across Cordova and on to Germantown. The line even showed up on early morning visible satellite imagery (see the last image below, showing a narrow north-south line of slightly brighter white over eastern Shelby County). The satellite even indicates that the cloud line may have extended south into eastern DeSoto County, then tailed back southwest towards eastern Tunica County. What caused it is anyones guess. One possibility is that the clouds could have formed along a boundary between two slightly different airmasses with slightly different temperature or moisture characteristics, perhaps leftover from yesterday afternoon's thunderstorms that were scattered about the region. In any case, it was an interesting phenomena to note, take a couple of pictures of, and observe from a satellite 22,500 miles up!

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GOES-13 begins operational life as GOES-East

A new generation of weather-watching satellites comes online in an official capacity tomorrow, April 14, 2010 at 2:34pm CDT. At that time, GOES-13 (GOES-N when originally launched in May 2006) will replace GOES-12 as the operational satellite covering the eastern portion of the United States and Northern Hemisphere. It will frequently be referred to simply as GOES-East. The satellite will maintain a vigilant watch from an altitude of 22,240 statute miles at 75 degrees west longitude, beaming back images every 15 minutes around the clock. It's expected lifespan is 10 years or more. The current satellite, GOES-12, will move to a position at 60 degrees west in which it can cover South America following the decommissioning of GOES-10, which had that duty until December 2009.

GOES-13 is the first of three third-generation NOAA satellites (GOES N-P) to go into full operation. GOES-O (-14) and -P are in orbit in standby mode (GOES-P having just arrived in orbit in the past month). The GOES satellites (which stands for Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite) provide meteorologists and reseachers with a vital tool in monitoring weather conditions and tracking severe storms. They maintain a geosynchronous orbit - staying in the same position over the earth at all times.

The next generation of GOES satellites, the highly-anticipated GOES-R series, will carry even more advanced technology than the current satellites, including much higher spatial and temporal resolution and realtime lightning mapping. The first is scheduled to be launched aboard a Delta IV rocket in 2015.

For more information on the GOES satellites, visit these links:

GOES on Wikipedia

GOES-13 on Wikipedia

List of GOES satellites

Info on GOES N-P from NASA

NOAA's Office of Satellite Operations

Current imagery from GOES satellites

More imagery from NASA

Info on the GOES-R satellite (GOES-R.gov)

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Morning weather picture from 22,500 miles up

I found this morning's visible satellite imagery to be rather interesting, so I thought I'd share.

The remnants of one system and the early signs of a second are shown on this Mid-South view. Note the low level moisture, in the form of stratus clouds, in the wake of yesterday's weather system over the Lower Mississippi Valley, Tennessee Valley, and interior southeast. As we know, the clouds broke up over the city this morning and you can clearly see at 9:15am that the back edge was right along the river and just to our north. Within an hour of that image, they began dissipating over Shelby County.

You can also see very high wispy clouds starting to appear over the southern Plains as the next weather maker, which will bring us a round of thunderstorms Saturday night, organizes to our west.

The thing that caught my eye quickest though was the snake-like white traces across northwest Arkansas and eastern Oklahoma. That is radiation fog that formed in the valleys and river bottoms. As would be expected, the fog had dissipated by the satellite image taken about an hour later (now shown). ((Thanks to the reader who corrected me on this being fog and not ridge-top snow. Should have known that...))

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Winter takes a short break; satellite indicates global warmth for January

The cold weather pattern of the past few weeks has broken for just a few days as the Mid-South saw their first 50 degree day today since January 28. A full day of sun was a welcome sight, and so was the lack of snow cover! Today was the first day without any snow on the ground at WXLIVE! in Bartlett since the February 8th storm, and only the 5th day this month.

Though it was still below normal temperature-wise, that streak (which is also at 21 days) should end tomorrow as highs climb to the mid to upper 50s. It's been an unusually cold and active winter for the region (see Eddie Holmes' blog on the topic as it relates to Jackson, TN), so a few nice days in the mix is welcome. Following a low pressure system that will bring rain to the area this weekend, another round of Arctic air will spill into the tri-state region next week, which could hold tight through the early part of March (8-14 day outlook), as we end meteorogical winter.

Though the U.S. has been well below normal this winter, Jeff Masters at Weather Underground reports that last month was the warmest January in the lower atmosphere since 1978, globally speaking, continuing a trend of above normal temperatures since the current El Nino began last summer. The measurements are taken from Microwave Sounding Unit aboard a polar-orbiting satellite.

One final note... I'll be speaking tomorrow to the second graders at Rivercrest Elementary School for their Career Day. I hope they enjoy my talk on being a world famous pastry chef! Ha! I always look forward to opportunities like this and am especially grateful to the staff at Rivercrest for having me tomorrow. I think my second-grade daughter is more excited than I though!

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GOES-14 produces first full disk infrared image

If you recall from a previous post on this blog, or from other sources, a new GOES satellite was launched into space aboard a Delta IV rocket in late June to help watch Earth's weather from 22,000 miles up. This satellite reached geostationary orbit on July 8 and was named GOES-14. It produced its first full disk (hemispheric) infrared image earlier today, which included a view of Tropical Depressions Ana and Claudette, Hurricane Bill, and Tropical Storm Guillermo in the central Pacific. Check out the photogenic first look at the western hemisphere from GOES-14 above(click for larger image).

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New GOES satellite reaches orbit

In case you missed it, Boeing/NASA/NOAA sent a new weather satellite into space onboard a Delta IV rocket back on June 27. This satellite, named GOES-O (the letter, not the number 0), has been maneuvering around to get into final orbit for the past couple weeks and on Wednesday reached its final destination at 22,300 miles up at 89.5 degrees West longitude. At that time, it was re-named GOES-14.

Up to this point, Boeing has been calling the shots for GOES-O/14, but next Friday, the reins will be handed off the NASA for approximately 5 months while it completes on-orbit checkout. The first image from the new satellite will be produced July 27. Then, the spacecraft gets handed over to NOAA, where it becomes a "hot spare," fully ready to jump in in case of a failure of one of the other GOES satellites that are currently providing the shots of the weather over the western hemisphere.

Those satellites, which are one generation older than GOES-14, are GOES-11 (or GOES-West, covering the western U.S.) and GOES-12 (or GOES-East, covering the eastern U.S.). There are two other GOES satellites floating over the Earth - GOES-10 covering South America and GOES-13, a sister to GOES-14 and also in standby mode.

For more information on GOES-O, check out this NASA site or NOAA's Office of Satellite Operations.

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Weather wrap-up for Thursday, June 25

The heat continues across the Mid-South, though a few degrees cooler than earlier this week and also less humidity, therefore Heat Advisories have not been issued since the "cool front" passed through Tuesday night. We may see them return though for Saturday as heat index values will once again climb near 105 or higher. Another front looks like it will be coming through Sunday night, so that may end the string of 95+ degree days and drop the humidity levels once again. For Friday, ozone levels have crept up in the city and will be high enough tomorrow to cause problems for those with certain respiratory problems. Thus, a Code Orange Ozone Alert has been issued and an Ozone Action Day declared. Take precautions in this heat.

Today marks the 9th day of 95 degree heat, with at least two more coming (maybe Sunday too). The rain chances with Sunday's front will be low and a very weak front will get close enough tomorrow to perhaps spark an isolated cell or two late in the afternoon or evening Friday. Maybe someone will get lucky and get a few drops!

Speaking of heat, it's hot, but not necessarily record-breaking, until yesterday morning when the old maximum low temperature of 80 degrees was eclipsed by a balmy 81 degree low! The old record stood for nearly 80 years. Record highs are running in the lower 100s so I don't think we'll see any high temp records broken in this current streak.

In other news, I have added some additional damage photos from the Elmore Park area of Bartlett to the album of pictures I took of the damage from the Mid-South derecho on June 12. If you haven't read my event analysis or checked out the radar and satellite loops, home video of the storm as it passed through, and damage photos, I encourage you to do so. You can find the information by clicking here.

Finally, NASA is set to launch the newest weather satellite into orbit tomorrow (June 26). GOES-O will lift off aboard a Delta IV rocket if the weather holds up. (How about that for ironic? A weather satellite is delayed going into space due to the weather??) GOES-O will live in storage mode among its siblings, GOES-10, -11, -12, and -13, in an orbit 22,300 miles above the Earth. It will be called into service should there be a failure of one of the other operational satellites. For more information on GOES-O, see these links:
http://cli.gs/X7sRNM (NASA)
http://cli.gs/v9nrMu (NOAA)

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View of snow from space

Above you'll see an image taken by the MODIS instrumentation aboard a Terra satellite (a Polar-Orbiting satellite) as it took it's morning pass over the Mid-South this morning. The snow and clouds are marked, delineated roughly by the dotted red line. The brighter whites over the Mid-South are deeper snowpack, and one can clearly see rivers and large streams (darker lines snaking through the snow) that aren't snow-covered. The resolution of this particular imagery is excellent (1 km). If you wanted to know who got snow, this is the best way to see it!

Another image from the GOES-East satellite (VIS channel) is shown on my friend Eddie's blog.

Radar and satellite of Ike prior to landfall

Radar image from Houston as Hurricane Ike moves ashore. Eye wall moving into Galveston. Taken at 9:08pm CDT 9/12/08.

Infrared (color) satellite shot of Ike prior to landfall - 7:45pm CDT 9/12/08.