VISIT: Meteorological Interpretation Blog

On 5 May 2009, NESDIS staff at CIRA called for Super Rapid Scan Operations (SRSO) for GOES-11 due to the forecast of severe weather in Texas.  The GOES-11 SRSO activation is in preparation for the VORTEX-II field project so that high temporal resolution satellite imagery is available for this important field project.

During the VORTEX-II field project (May 10 - June 13) , GOES-11 SRSO will be activated on days when RSO schedule is not in use for GOES-11.  The temporal resolution during an SRSO schedule is one-minute data, however, there will not be continuous 1-minute data due to operational scan sectors:

http://www.ssd.noaa.gov/PS/SATS/GOES/WEST/s-srso.html

For this reason, there will be gaps between higher and lower temporal resolution data.

During times of GOES-11 SRSO activation,  the Visible and IR data respectively,  may be viewed on the following web-sites:

http://rammb.cira.colostate.edu/projects/svr_vis/vortex2/visloop.asp

http://rammb.cira.colostate.edu/projects/svr_vis/vortex2/irloop.asp

You may also view the data on the GOES West Visible Floater sector on the RSO RAMSDIS online page:

http://rammb.cira.colostate.edu/ramsdis/online/rso.asp

The visible imagery from 5 May 2009 over Texas may be viewed here:

http://rammb.cira.colostate.edu/projects/svr_vis/srso/5may09/visloop.asp

 On this day, a thunderstorm developed along a low-level convergence boundary and quickly became severe.  Hail up to softball size was reported with this storm.  Note the development of inflow feeder clouds along the southern flank of the storm.  The inflow feeder clouds became evident between 0000 and 0030 UTC 6 May, and afterward can be seen moving quickly towards the storm.  The viewing angle from the GOES west perspective offers a favorable perspective of the inflow feeder clouds. There are occasions when GOES-east data will not show this signature over the central US while GOES-west does due to its more favorable view angle.

(Image courtesy of Eric Thaler, SOO WFO DEN/BOU.  Data source - NOAA/NWS; Map - FEMA) 

Thursday, May 22, 2008 was truly a day the will live in infamy for many folks in and around the communities of western Weld County (and north eastern Larimer county), Colorado.  While the city of Windsor, Colorado sustained the most damage (total amounts still at large), many other towns were also affected by this large early season tornado (Platteville, Gilcrest, Milliken, western Greeley - where there was one fatality -, Timnath, and points just northeast of Fort Collins).  Albany County, Wyoming (including the city of Laramie) was also affected and damaged by this same storm early in the afternoon.  The area around Dacono, Colorado also took on some damage just after noon on the 22nd as a tornado, connected with a separate severe storm, bounced west of town.  This second storm ended up following a near parallel track to the first storm - only was displaced further to the west and remained mostly over the barren foothills as it too tracked to the north-northwest and into southern Wyoming - however, with no additional (apparent) damage.

Interesting atmospheric severe weather set-up for not only the front range of northern Colorado, but for the entire high and central plains region with many more strong tornadoes showing themselves and wreaking havoc in Kansas and Nebraska.  Even the west coast of the USA was not untouched by tornadoes on this day  - they too being influenced by the massive-deep-digging late season upper level trough.

For more concerning the morning tornadoes of northern Colorado please go to this satellite oriented report at: http://rammb.cira.colostate.edu/case_studies/20080522/    

Or, The NWS BOU/DEN report at: http://www.crh.noaa.gov/news/display_cmsstory.php?wfo=bou&storyid=8556&source=0

Or, for yet another look at the storms and set-up, please go to the CIMMS blog: http://cimss.ssec.wisc.edu/goes/blog/archives/660  �