Assessment of a GOES microburst product for two early cold season convective storms

TL;DR

This study evaluates the effectiveness of a GOES satellite brightness temperature difference product in identifying severe downburst regions during two cold-season convective storms over the Mid-Atlantic.

Contribution

It introduces and assesses a new GOES BTD product for early detection of microburst-prone areas in cold-season storms.

Findings

BTD product effectively highlights downburst regions.

Operational utility demonstrated for cold-season storms.

Improves early warning capabilities for severe convective events.

Abstract

This paper presents an assessment of the new Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES) imager channel 3 - 4 brightness temperature difference (BTD) product for two early cold season severe convective storm events that occurred over the Mid-Atlantic region on 17 November and 1 December 2010. Both of these events involved squall lines that produced strong downbursts as they tracked over the Tidal Potomac River and Chesapeake Bay regions. It has been found recently that the BTD between GOES infrared channel 3 (water vapor) and channel 4 (thermal infrared) can highlight regions where severe outflow wind generation (i.e. downbursts, microbursts) is likely due to the channeling of dry mid-tropospheric air into the precipitation core of a deep, moist convective storm. These two cases demonstrate effective operational use of this image product for cold-season convective storm events.