GOES-13 is scheduled to replace GOES-12 as the GOES-East operational spacecraft on April 14, 2010
GOES-13 was launched on May 24, 2006. This spacecraft is the first in the series of GOES-N satellites. GOES-13 carried the same imager and sounder payload as GOES-12, but the new spacecraft bus will allow it to operate through eclipse and keep out zone periods. The new GOES East images will have increased navigation, registration and radiometric accuracy.
GOES-13 was brought out of storage on 1/27/10 into Pre-Opreational mode. GOES-13 has already began INR & GVAR recovery and will begin imaging and sounding in a GOES-East schedule tomorrow. Starting the 23rd, the Office of Satellite Operations will begin the eastward drift of GOES-13 at approximately 0.5 degrees per day.
GOES-13 will approach 81W on 4/14/10. At this time, GOES-13 GVAR and LRIT will be relayed through the GOES-12 downlink. Ancillary services (DCS/EMWIN/SARSAT) will remain on board GOES-12. GOES-13 will be declared GOES-East in the NOAA GOES Constellation. On 4/26/10, GVAR will be switched from GOES-12 to GOES-13 when GOES-13 is at 75.5W. GOES-13 will stop drift. Ancillary services will switch to GOES-13 at this time. On 4/27/10, GOES-12 will begin eastward drift to 60W in order to replace GOES-10, which was de-orbited in December 2009. Imaging operations for GOES-South America will begin on or about 5/11/10. GOES-12 is expected to arrive on station at 60W on 5/17/10.
Source: Satellite Services Division, User Services NOAA/NESDIS/OSDPD
This last week brought drying, except Tuesday which brought us 0.25". The rain, in my opinion was not a soaking rain but it was average. The temps didn't get too cold like normal winter storms. The latter half of the week was dominated by high pressure and scattered high clouds.
My spare time at night was spent evaluating some software new to me. The first is a free cross-platform program that essentially becomes a scientific GIS viewer for weather & climate data sets. Especially interesting to me was the ability to use live and archived NEXRAD data.
The Integrated Data Viewer (IDV) from Unidata is a Java(TM)-based software framework for analyzing and visualizing geoscience data. The IDV brings together the ability to display and work with satellite imagery, gridded data, surface observations, balloon soundings, NWS WSR-88D Level II and Level III radar data, and NOAA National Profiler Network data, all within a unified interface.
The program can also render movies and images combining data from many different sources. Although it is better for scientific evaluation, it does well at providing a good view of all the NEXRAD products.
The second program I found while obtaining data for the first. It's a simple application that provides basic visualization and data export of weather and climatological data archived at NCDC. It's called "NOAA's Weather and Climate Toolkit" and it seemed to be more appropriate for viewing archived weather data than the IDV.
Needless to say, the high clouds passing through on the 29th blocked my view of the moonrise, the "biggest" of the year but it did provide another spectacular sunset. I was able to see the moon later in the night, big and bright as ever.
January 22, 2010 The morning CoCoRaHs rainfall reading was 1.40" bringing the running storm total to 5.97". Another band of rain moved in after midnight and at 4 AM a large band hit hard bringing heavy showers through 6 AM. Two more heavy bands moved in through out the morning. Another larger band moved in for showers from 11 AM till around 2:30 PM. It was at that point the sky grew wicked looking.
A band of convective moisture formed up over the channel islands and as it made land fall in LA county, the intensity became apparent. To the west, the sky grew blackish on the line from Catalina to LA county with rain falling and embedded lightning. At 3:40 PM I spotted what appeared to be a wall cloud (it wasn't I think) hanging from the base of one of the cells just SE of a column of rain. Low scud was also appearing under the front of the line of cells with heavy rain just behind.
Once it reached my location, the was marble sized hail, heavy rain and lightning. After talking with the NWS in San Diego and making a spotter report for the hail and lightning, I stayed on the north side of the canyon in the Yorba Linda area as the band moved through.
By 5:30 PM the rain band had moved east and the sunset hitting some high clouds with colors of warm orange to salmon pink. By 9 PM all the moisture had moved east and the sky was clearing. The week of wild weather appears to be complete.
SPC's CPTP Forecast for thunderstorms, 1AM PST Fri.
January 21, 2010 The morning rain gauge reading for the last 24 hours was 1.55", bringing the week storm total to 4.57" of precipitation. It rained much of the day. Rain showers had already started moving in at 2 AM and lasting all morning. At 11 AM, once again, the main rain band moved in from the SSW which lasted until 1:45 PM which exited to the NNE. From 2 PM to 3 PM a quick line of heavy showers moved East across the county. The sky looked very threatening after work. This was my first chance to get out an do some real photography. After the cold front passed in late afternoon a large pool of cold air brought widespread showers and isolated thunderstorms lasting all night.
Afternoon showers over Yorba Linda
Around 7:30 PM a line of storms from Seal Beach to San Dimas brought with it lightning and light grauple. After I took a few stills from home without much luck, I went out to chase. Two storm chaser friends were already out. Storm chaser Gerry a la "OCWX" was up the 15 freeway and chaser Will Wilkens went out as far as San Dimas then doubled back to Ontario Mills.
Night Lightning
My plan was to head up the 57 to San Dimas, but a strong cell that had formed in the line was about to move over Brea so I stopped short of getting on the freeway at Lambert. I was rewarded with very intense rains and some hail with half a dozen lightning strikes both CG and CC. After that cell passed I took off south on the 57 to intercept another strengthening cell moving NE over Seal Beach. Spotting CG to the west, I headed out the 91 W/B as far as Magnolia and turned around as the best dynamics were moving east and the entire line moved east.
From there I headed east as more cells seemed to be heading NE toward Santa Ana. It was at that point that I could either go N 57 to San Dimas or continue east on the 91 to the inland empire and catch what came over the Santa Ana Mountains or head south. I chose south on the 55. Seeing lighting in south county I then took the I-5 further south to Tustin Ranch and got off. At that point the video battery was dead so I switched out the video on the tripod to the still camera. From there it seemed like I had missed the south county storm so I headed back north on the 55 then east 91 to Gypsum. At that point thing died down and it was nearly 11PM. I went home.
January 20, 2010 The morning rain gauge reading showed a total of 1.17" over the previous 24 hours. After a few brief pre frontal showers the main band began at 11 AM with a short lighter band followed quickly by a deeper band that lasted until the front passed at around 5 PM.
A smaller quick wave of post frontal moisture moved through from about 5:30 PM but all the rain ended after 7 PM. Nothing compared to the day before. Just a lot of rain which would bring the highest 24 hour total of the week.
January 19, 2010 Tuesday mornings rain total from the day before was 1.41" bringing the week storm total 1.85". Although the sky was cloudy most of the morning the next band of rain didn't start until almost 11:45 AM. This would prove to be one of the strongest fronts of the week. Unfortunately my work duties kept me inside for most of the event. Reports from friends kept me in the loop. The rain started as early as 10 AM and covered the county by noon. At 12:45 PM the National Weather service issued the first of four consecutive TORNADO WARNINGS!
TVS on a capture of the KSOX SR Velocity
BULLETIN - EAS ACTIVATION REQUESTED TORNADO WARNING NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE SAN DIEGO CA 1245 PM PST TUE JAN 19 2010
THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN SAN DIEGO HAS ISSUED A
* TORNADO WARNING FOR... ORANGE COUNTY IN SOUTHWEST CALIFORNIA... THIS INCLUDES THE CITIES OF...SEAL BEACH...HUNTINGTON BEACH...WESTMINSTER...GARDEN GROVE...IRVINE...FULLERTON...COSTA MESA...ANAHEIM...
* UNTIL 130 PM PST
* AT 1237 PM PST...NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE DOPPLER RADAR INDICATED A SEVERE THUNDERSTORM CAPABLE OF PRODUCING A TORNADO 17 MILES SOUTHWEST OF HUNTINGTON BEACH...MOVING NORTHEAST AT 30 MPH.
* THE TORNADO WILL BE NEAR... HUNTINGTON BEACH BY 110 PM PST... FOUNTAIN VALLEY...COSTA MESA...WESTMINSTER AND GARDEN GROVE BY 120 PM PST... SANTA ANA BY 125 PM PST... TUSTIN...TUSTIN FOOTHILLS...ORANGE AND 6 MILES NORTHWEST OF IRVINE BY 130 PM PST...
13:14 PST 248mi Composite Reflectivity - Image courtesy of OCWX.NET
Shortly after this was issued, a tornado was spotted in the Sunset Beach community of Huntington Beach as indicated in the following LSR.
PRELIMINARY LOCAL STORM REPORT NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE SAN DIEGO CA 336 PM PST TUE JAN 19 2010
1257 PM TORNADO HUNTINGTON BEACH 33.69N 118.01W 01/19/2010 ORANGE CA PUBLIC
TORNADO SPOTTED ON PACIFIC COAST HIGHWAY JUST SOUTH OF ANDERSON STREET. THE FUNNEL CROSSED THE HIGHWAY AND HEADED NE. A BLACK LIMO WAS LIFTED UP AND AN SUV WAS FLIPPED AND THROWN INTO A TREE. DOWNED TREES AND ROOF DAMAGE WERE ALSO SEEN IN THE AREA.>>
I was monitoring the situation o the iPhone getting updates from multiple sources. Storm chaser, Will Wilkens was positioned just two miles from the location and took the time lapse video below.
Once he heard about the tornado on the ground he was on scene in minutes, before authorities arrived. Will who is an Associate Chaser with severestudios.com shot video of a car overturned, tree damage, and roof damage from an EF-0 Tornado that touched down in the Huntington Beach, CA area.
Aside from the tornado, there were damaging winds, lightning an hail which spread across the county. A friend in the canyon told me every intersection along Orangethorpe east of Kraemer was flooded. He also said the storm channel crossing under at Tustin avenue was full and started flowing over the channel siphon/bridge. Needless to say, this was one of the most wild days of the week.
By 2:30 PM, the bulk of the rain had passed and damage assessment began in the calm. Most of the county began to dry the rest of the night.
January 18, 2010 Monday lighter sets of light pre-frontal showers were moving in from the west. The first was about 4 AM to 7 AM, then 10 AM to 11:30 AM. The main frontal band moved bringing very heavy rains into Orange County around noon and with frontal passage around 3 PM. Clearing followed the front.
January 17, 2010 Rain started falling in Orange County Sunday around 1:45 PM as the first pre-frontal band moved in. By evening, the rain was consistent and covered much of the LA basin. I was supposed to fly to Santa Monica, by the weather was MVFR/IFR so we opted to drive. By 6 AM the next morning we had already received 0.44".
A mackerel sky is an indicator of moisture (the cloud) and instability (the cirrus-cumulus form) at intermediate levels, 8000-20,000 ft. I took the picture above, Sunday morning. I knew something was up when the NWS started mentioning a shift in the weather pattern.
AREA FORECAST DISCUSSION NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE SAN DIEGO CA 100 AM PST SAT JAN 16 2010
.HYDROLOGY...THE PRECIPITATION NEXT WEEK HAS THE POTENTIAL TO GENERATE RAINFALL OF 5 TO 8 INCHES NEAR THE COAST WITH CLOSE TO 20 INCHES ON THE COASTAL MOUNTAIN SLOPES. TYPICALLY WETTER LOCATIONS ON THE COASTAL MOUNTAIN SLOPES COULD RECEIVE NEAR 30 INCHES OF RAINFALL. AT HIGHER ELEVATIONS IN THE SAN BERNARDINO AND RIVERSIDE COUNTY MOUNTAINS...MOSTLY ABOVE 6000 FEET...4 TO 6 FEET OF SNOWFALL IS POSSIBLE WITH LOCAL LARGER AMOUNTS.
THERE WILL ALSO BE THE POTENTIAL FOR THUNDERSTORMS AND WATERSPOUTS AT TIMES NEXT WEEK AS THESE STRONG STORM SYSTEMS MOVE INTO THE COASTAL WATERS.
This was confirmed by a Sciencedude blog quoting Mark Moede of the San Diego office by Epic weather on it's way.
A SERIES OF STORMS EMBEDDED IN A STRONG PAC JET WILL BRING A POTENTIALLY EPIC WET WEATHER EVENT NEXT WEEK. - MOEDE
