The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) GOES-16 satellites have been capturing very telling imagery of the Nor’easter deepening off the East coast of the United States the last few days. The powerful storm has battered the region with heavy snow, coastal flooding, and strong winds from Florida to Maine.
The Geocolor image above is a multispectral product composed of True Color (using a simulated green component) during the daytime, and an Infrared product that uses bands 7 and 13 at night. During the day, the imagery looks approximately as it would appear when viewed with human eyes from space.
Wondering about the shape of the #blizzard? The powerful midlatitude #BombCyclone has several meso-vortices spinning within its center, #GOESEast ABI captured these images of the storm every minute today. #snowday See more #cool GOES imagery here: https://t.co/mbgRYot60A pic.twitter.com/Zzab51uurp
— NOAA Satellites (@NOAASatellites) January 4, 2018
You may have heard the Nor’easter called a “bomb cyclone“. Meteorologists say that a storm undergoes “bombogenesis” when it rapidly intensifies over a short period. More precisely, it’s a mid-latitude cyclone that sees its central pressure drop 24 millibars or more within 24 hours. Storms like this typically bring heavy precipitation, strong winds, and coastal storm surge and are common along the East Coast during the winter months.
#GOESEast captured the full path of the #BombCyclone exhibiting a rare and extremely rapid rate of intensification on the East Coast with some of the coldest wind chills of the season and near zero visibility in the snow bands @NWS. #Blizzard2018 More: https://t.co/mbgRYot60A pic.twitter.com/GKlFTaLJBI
— NOAA Satellites (@NOAASatellites) January 4, 2018
The Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES) – R Series is a collaborative development and acquisition effort between NOAA and NASA. The GOES-16 (GOES-East) satellite, the first of the series, provides continuous imagery and atmospheric measurements of Earth’s western hemisphere and space weather monitoring.
The East Coast is waking up to an arctic chill this morning following the bombogenesis #BombCyclone. This type of rapidly intensifying storm with hurricane force winds in this part of the globe during winter is rare @NWS #blizzard2018 More imagery: https://t.co/mbgRYot60A pic.twitter.com/v1y87b83ab
— NOAA Satellites (@NOAASatellites) January 5, 2018
For WeatherNation: Meteorologist Mace Michaels