On the morning early of 04/06/17, TAFB forecasters noted a nice V-pattern to convection at the tail end of a front in the northeast Gulf of Mexico.  The increased temporal and spatial resolution of GOES-16 compared to the GOES-13 (east) provided more details on the organization and maintenance of the convective line that would otherwise have been analyzed.

GOES-16 0.64 um “Red” visible animation showing strong convection in the eastern Gulf of Mexico, valid 0900 UTC – 1600 UTC on 04/06/17.  *Preliminary, Non-Operational Data*  Click to Enlarge

Hugh Cobb (TAFB Branch Chief) noted:  “We also looked at the Red VIS Band 2 for this event. The VIS imagery was more striking in that you could see the shadows of the high cirrus cast on the lower cloud deck in the animation and the “beavertail” of of the low clouds feeding into and maintaining the deep convection.”

GOES-16 10.3 um “Clean” infrared animation (same as above), valid from 0900 UTC – 1600 UTC on 04/06/17.  *Preliminary, Non-Operational Data*  Click to Enlarge

GOES-16 10.3 “Clean” infrared imagery with 5-minute GLD-360 lightning density overlaid, valid 0900 UTC – 1600 UTC on 04/06/17.  *Preliminary, Non-Operational Data*  Click to Enlarge

Jorge Aguirre-Echevarria (TAFB Forecaster) noted that “the striking cloud/convective signature and associate lightning activity observed that day over the waters of the far southern  Gulf of Mexico.”  In particular, these events are rather rare at such a low latitude in the TAFB Offshore Zones.  The GOES-16 10.3 μm infrared imagery proved to be very helpful in seeing the overshooting tops and the cold cloud canopy temperatures which signified the activity would persist west of Key West, FL.

Thanks for reading!