Another day of GOES-14 Super Rapid Scan Operations for GOES-R. . .another hurricane. Now, I know. . .Hurricane Cristobal is not a very photogenic hurricane, but during the course of the day, the storm has shown signs of better organization. One very noticeable feature has been the increase of lightning in the large, elongated band in the eastern quadrant. Over the last couple of hours, there has been a marked increase in lightning near the center of Cristobal. Could this be dry air intrusion? A sign of intensification? I’ll let you be the judge. The lightning data here is from the Vaisala GLD-360 lightning strikes, but is displayed as a 2-minute density product which was developed collaboratively among the Ocean Prediction Center (OPC), the National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service (NESDIS) Center for Satellite Applications and Research (STAR), and the Cooperative Institute of Climate and Satellites (CICS) at the University of Maryland. The 2-min lightning density is time matched with the SRSOR in 2-min increments for a smooth (ish) animation.
GOES-14 SRSOR (feeds courtesy of CIRA and CIMSS) with Vaisala GLD-360 2-min lightning density overlaid. Thanks to James Kells (OPC) for creating the animation. Click on image to expand in another window.
While I have your attention, thanks to some quick work by Christopher Juckins and Frances Achorn of OPC, we now have a public, real-time version of the 30-min lightning density product overlaid on GOES-13 infrared imagery. Feel free to bookmark these pages for future use:
http://www.opc.ncep.noaa.gov/lightning/index_atloff.php?basin=atl§or=s&sat=IR&loop=1#contents
http://www.opc.ncep.noaa.gov/lightning/index_natl.php?basin=natl§or=farn&sat=IR&loop=1#contents
http://www.opc.ncep.noaa.gov/lightning/index_trop.php?basin=trop§or=w&sat=IR&loop=1#contents
http://www.opc.ncep.noaa.gov/lightning/index_trop.php?basin=trop§or=e&sat=IR&loop=1#contents
For more information on the GOES-14 SRSORs, please visit: http://cimss.ssec.wisc.edu/goes/srsor2014/GOES-14_SRSOR.html
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