CIMSS Satellite Blog

GOES-16 Near-Infrared “Snow/Ice” (1.61 µm, top), Near-Infrared “Cloud Particle Size” (2.24 µm, middle) and Shortwave Infrared (3.9 µm, bottom) images [click to animate]

After a series of occasional weak emissions during the previous month, a small eruption of Volcán de Fuego began during the pre-dawn hours on 01 February 2018. The thermal anomaly or “hot spot” could be seen on GOES-16 (GOES-East) Near-Infrared “Snow/Ice” (1.61 µm), Near-Infrared “Cloud Particle Size” (2.24 µm) and Shortwave Infrared (3.9 µm) images (above). In terms of the two Near-Infrared bands, even though the 1.61 µm band has better spatial resolution (1 km at satellite sub-point), the 2-km resolution 2.24 µm band is spectrally located closer to the peak emitted radiance of very hot features such as active volcanoes or large fires.

Multi-spectral retrievals of Ash Cloud Height from the NOAA/CIMSS Volcanic Cloud Monitoring site (below) indicated that volcanic ash extended to altitudes in the 4-6 km range (yellow to green enhancement), with isolated 7 km pixels at 1315 UTC. The product also showed the effect of a burst of southwesterly winds just after 11 UTC, which began to transport some of the ash northeastward (as mentioned in the 1332 UTC advisory).

GOES-16 Ash Height product [click to animate]

from CIMSS Satellite Blog http://cimss.ssec.wisc.edu/goes/blog/archives/26889