CIMSS Satellite Blog

The mesoscale convective vortex (thunderstorm complex) from Arizona overnight is evident a small eye on visible satellite and large mass of debris clouds over #socal in addition to the morning dust layer in the Coachella Valley #cawx #Monsoon2018 pic.twitter.com/VE3QB6iKfh

— NWS San Diego (@NWSSanDiego) July 9, 2018

As mentioned by NWS San Diego, monsoon thunderstorms that developed over Arizona spawned a small Mesoscale Convective Vortex (MCV). The animation below shows nighttime GOES-16 (GOES-East) “Clean” Infrared Window (10.3 µm) images, followed by daytime GOES-16 “Red” Visible (0.64 µm) images — the center of the MCV circulation briefly exhibited a clear “eye-like” appearance just after 16 UTC (south of the California/Mexico border).

GOES-16 “Clean” Infrared Window (10.3 µm) and “Red” Visible (0.64 µm) images, with hourly plots of surface reports [click to play MP4 animation]

A 1-km resolution NOAA-19 Infrared Window (10.8 µm) image at 1132 UTC (below) showed a more detailed view of the small cluster of thunderstorms responsible for the MCV — the convection produced 0.68″ of rainfall near Yuma (KNYZ) in far southwestern Arizona, and generated an outflow boundary which produced wind gusts to 46 mph at Thermal, California (NWS statements).

NOAA-19 AVHRR Infrared Window (10.8 µm) image [click to enlarge]

A toggle between 1-km resolution NOAA-15 and NOAA-18 Visible (0.63 µm) images (below) revealed the emergence of the eye-like MCV center in far northern Baja California (just southeast of Campo, California KCZZ) at 1547 UTC.

NOAA-15 and NOAA-18 Visible (0.63 µm) images [click to enlarge]

from CIMSS Satellite Blog http://cimss.ssec.wisc.edu/goes/blog/archives/28850