An extended dry period over the Marianas Islands was broken (at least temporarily) on 24 April when training thunderstorms dropped more than 5 inches of rain at the Guam airport. The US Drought Monitor data for the Marianas is shown below. Guam and Saipan both show extreme drought. Before the rain on 24 April, Guam year-to-date rains were 50% of normal. Persistent drought over the islands means that the heavy rains that fell likely did not percolate into the soil, instead becoming run-off. The airmass RGB above shows the evolution of the strong storms especially between 1800 and 2230 UTC. (Click here for a slower animation during that time). Visible imagery after sunrise (below) shows the strong thunderstorms as well.

---

---

MetopB overflew Guam shortly after 0000 UTC on 24 April, as shown below. Surface winds at that time show stronger trades approaching from the east. Note that Metop-B viewed this region of the Pacific twice on 24 April, once at 0010 UTC, and once at 2350 UTC as shown in this image of the MetopB orbits on 24 April; (source) the left-most swath and the swath over Guam are from the early overpass; the other two swaths are from the later overpass.

---

Himawari-9 data are available in RealEarth. The loop below shows the clean window infrared imagery (Band 13, 10.4 µm) from 1800 to 2200 UTC on 23 April. The coldest cloud tops occurred around 2020/2030 UTC. Cloud-top warming was widespread after 2130 UTC.

View only this post Read Less

5-minute CONUS Sector GOES-16 (GOES-East) “Red” Visible (0.64 µm) images (above) included an overlay of the Fire Mask derived product (a component of the GOES Fire Detection and Characterization Algorithm FDCA) — which showed the smoke plumes and thermal signatures associated with prescribed burns in the Florida Panhandle on 22 April 2024.

Once the smoke plumes extended about 20-30 miles offshore, their signature became apparent in the GOES-16 Aerosol Optical Depth (AOD) derived product (below) — AOD values exceeded 1.0 (darker red pixels) within the easternmost smoke plume.

GOES-16 True Color RGB images from the CSPP GeoSphere site (below) provided a clearer view of the 2 dominant smoke plumes (along with a few other less-pronounced smoke plumes from smaller fires).

View only this post Read Less

There are several satellites that routinely image the Sun, to support Space Weather. Due to the recent total solar eclipse, there has been much interest in the Sun.

SUVI

The GOES-R series also has a number of space weather instruments, including the SUVI (Solar UV Imager).

The above images are via the UW/SSEC ingest of NOAA’s GOES-16 SUVI data via the GOES Re-Broadcast (GRB).

SDO

There are many (incorrectly) reporting that a #SolarFlare was visible during the #TotalSolarEclipse. This is sadly untrue, and the bright feature seen by millions was actually a prominence (shown below)! These are longer-lived plasma structures, and not explosive like flares. pic.twitter.com/jtiqB8CuvF

— Dr. Ryan French (@RyanJFrench) April 9, 2024

Images from NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO).

A similar loop, including RGB composites. “Courtesy of NASA/SDO and the AIA, EVE, and HMI science teams.” More SDO images.

LASCO

The Large Angle and Spectrometric COronagraph (LASCO) is on instrument on the joint NASA/ESA SOHO (Solar and Heliospheric Observatory) spacecraft.

“Courtesy of SOHO/LASCO consortium. SOHO is a project of international cooperation between ESA and NASA.” This image was obtained here.

GOES-U will fly a compact coronagraph.

H/T

Thanks to many for this post, including Rick Kohrs (UW/SSEC) and Dr. Ryan French.

View only this post Read Less

NOAA-20 overflew the Great Lakes early on 22 April 2024 (Earth Day) and the lack of cloud cover (except over northeastern Lake Superior) allowed a determination of Lake Surface Temperatures over most of the Great Lakes. As is usually the case, Lake Erie is the warmest lake, with temperatures near 50^oF over the western part of the lake (values are closer to 41-42^oF just north of Erie PA). How might Erie’s temperatures change in the near future? That’s estimated at this link from GLERL. Temperatures over Erie are warmer than normal — but not so warm as during April of 2012 — as shown here; values for other Great Lakes are here. Temperatures are also near 50^oF are in Saginaw Bay, and along the south shore of Lake Michigan. Most of northern Lake Michigan, and all of Lake Huron, have temperatures near 40^oF, and Lake Superior shows temperatures in the mid-30s.

---

AWIPS-ready JPSS Tiles are created from data downloaded at the Direct Broadcast antenna at CIMSS (processed by CSPP software) and are available from an LDM feed at CIMSS. Data are also available as imagery at this ftp site, and here.

View only this post Read Less