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All posts for the day April 27th, 2019

GOES-16/GOES-15 Comparison for Severe Thunderstorm Development

Posted by Bill Line on 04/27/2019
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GOES-15 continues to operate from 128W, providing imagery to the east Pacific and western US. GOES-15 imagery continues to be available to NWS forecasters in AWIPS. As a reminder of how far we’ve come from the previous generation of geostationary satellites, below are comparisons of GOES-16 (75W) 1-min imagery and GOES-15 routine imagery for thunderstorm development over west Texas on 27 April 2019. These thunderstorms developed at 100W, roughly in the middle (and north) of the two satellite subpoints. The animations are 1.5 hours long, running from 2030 UTC to 2200 UTC. Details such as cumulus cloud evolution, convective initiation, and storm top features (OTs, AACPs, texture) are all significantly easier to diagnose (and quicker) in the GOES-16 imagery. Be grateful for the GOES-R series!

Figure 1: 27 April 2019 GOES-16 1-min VIS (top, 0.5 km) and GOES-15 routine VIS (bottom, 1 km) over west Texas. Full res
Figure 2: 27 April 2019 GOES-16 1-min IR (top, 2 km) and GOES-15 routine IR (bottom, 4 km) over west Texas. Full res

These thunderstorms went on to produce severe hail and wind.

Bill Line, NWS