Satellite Liaison Blog

GOES-16 has periodically been scanning 1-min mesoscale sectors in South America for the RELAMPAGO Research Mission since this past October. Strong thunderstorms in Argentina were captured in the mesoscale sector on 11 December 2018. 

Focusing in on one of the storms for a 1.5 hour period (FIg 1-3), a persistent and large overshooting top is clear, along with a downstream above anvil cirrus plume, both indicating a particularly strong updraft and possible severe weather at the surface.  Shown are VIS, IR, and a VIS/IR sandwich combo.

Also shown are 15-min loops and wider views of the storm cluster moving across Argentina.

A GOES-16 1-min sector captured strong thunderstorms developing within a corridor of relatively high atmospheric moisture on Dec 14. The GOES-16 Total Precipitable Water product showed values up to 2.5″ within a large corridor of 2″+. 

The field study continued into 2019. Widespread thunderstorm activity was captured by the GOES-16 1-min sector over Argentina during the morning of 6 Jan. Figures 6 and 7 show ongoing convection after sunrise, including several storms exhibiting overshooting tops and above anvil cirrus plumes, which are indicative of particularly strong and potentially severe updrafts. Figure 8 shows the rapid development of a thunderstorm over a 95 minute period.

On 15 Jan 2019, 1-min visible imagery over Argentina provided an intriguing visualization of atmospheric shear. Loading Derived Motion Winds (DMWs) as well (updating every 5-min in mesoscale sectors), the shear can be better quantified. Sampling some winds in the area, we see 10-15 knot winds from 160 degrees at around 950 mb and 30 knot winds from 310 degrees at 550 mb yields a deep layer shear magnitude of around 40 knots.

Bill Line, NWS