NOAA-NESDIS
Regional And Mesoscale Meteorology Team
Daily Satellite Discussion
Tuesday October 21,1997
GOES-8 Averaged Water Vapor Image
Today's feature depicts composites of average radiance for the GOES-8 6.7 micrometer channel for the past 4 months (June, July, August, and September of 1997). The images cover a region over Central America and the Caribbean and are created by taking the average radiance at a particular pixel for a specific time over the entire month. Since the 6.7 micrometer channel is sensitive to water vapor in the upper levels of the atmosphere, these images display an average view of upper level features. A loop of imagery at 3 hour intervals shows diurnal changes over each of the months. As you loop through the imagery, notice regions in which there was little deep convection, shown by the deeper gray colors and indicating relatively warm, dry layers aloft. Contrast this with regions in which there was deep convection, as shown by the brighter white and blue colors indicating colder and moist layers. These regions change from month to month reflecting dominating synoptic patterns.

loop here

Bernadette Connell

We welcome your comments and discussion at ramsdis@comet.ucar.edu

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