CIMSS Satellite Blog

GOES-15 Visible (0.63 µm) images, with hourly surface reports [click to play animation]

GOES-15 (GOES-West) Visible (0.63 µm) images (above) showed the development of a small black cloud south/southwest of Vernal (station identifier KVEL) in northeastern Utah on 06 January 2017. This feature was the result of a fire at an oil well (media report | well location) that apparently started around 11:30 am local time (1830 UTC); the black cloud from the burning oil tanks — which was first apparent on the 1930 UTC image — stood out well against the snow-covered ground.

GOES-13 (GOES-East) Visible (0.63 µm) images (below) also showed the dark smoke plume. The viewing angles from the 2 satellites is similar (~53 degrees from GOES-15 vs ~57 degrees from GOES-13), but the time sampling was better from GOES-15 (due to the extra “SUB-CONUS” scan images at :11 and :41 minutes nearly every hour). Image frequency will be even better with the GOES-R series of satellites (beginning with GOES-16), with routine scans every 5 minutes; the visible image spatial resolution will also be improved (0.5 km, vs 1.0 km with the current GOES).

GOES-13 Visible (0.63 µm) images, with hourly surface reports [click to play animation]

MODIS Visible (0.645 µm) and Shortwave Infrared (3.7 µm) images from a 2034 UTC overpass of the Aqua satellite (below) showed the black smoke cloud in the Visible, but there was no evidence of a fire “hot spot” in the Shortwave Infrared; the media report indicated that the fire was extinguished about 2 hours after it started, which would have been around or just before the time of the MODIS images.

Aqua MODIS Visible (0.645 µm) and Shortwave Infrared (3.7 µm) images at 2034 UTC [click to enlarge]

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