CIMSS Satellite Blog

24-hour snowfall ending at 12 UTC on 19 April [click to enlarge]

A band of heavy snow fell across southern Minnesota (as much as 11.0 inches), northern Iowa (as much as 12.0 inches) and southern Wisconsin (as much as 9.4 inches) on 18 April 2018.

Animations of 1-minute Mesoscale Sector GOES-16 (GOES-East) “Red” Visible (0.64 µm), “Clean” Infrared Window (10.3 µm) and “Low-level” Water Vapor (7.3 µm) images (below) showed the formation of convective elements and banding along the southern edge of the colder cloud shield — snowfall rates were enhanced when these convective features moved overhead, and thundersnow was noted at some locations.

GOES-16 “Red” Visible (0.64 µm) images, with hourly surface weather type plotted in cyan [click to play MP4 animation]

GOES-16 “Clean” Infrared Window (10.3 µm) images, with hourly surface weather type plotted in yellow [click to play MP4 animation]

GOES-16 “Low=level” Water Vapor (7.3 µm) images, with hourly surface weather type plotted in cyan [click to play MP4 animation]

In south-central Wisconsin, Madison (KMSN) received 7.2 inches of snowfall, which set a new record for daily snowfall (and was the second-highest daily snowfall amount for the month of April. Over the southwestern part of the city, a cluster of GOES-16 Geostationary Lightning Mapper (GLM) Groups was detected from 1918 to 1919 UTC (below; courtesy of Dave Santek, SSEC).

GOES-16 GLM Groups [click to enlarge]

from CIMSS Satellite Blog http://cimss.ssec.wisc.edu/goes/blog/archives/27824