GOES-15-based GOES-R IFR Probabilities (Upper Left), GOES-15 Brightness Temperature Difference Product (10.7 – 3.9 ) (Upper Right), Color-shaded topographic map (Lower Left), GOES-15 Visible imagery and Suomi/NPP Day/Night Band (Lower Right), all times as indicated (click image to enlarge)

A strong low pressure system — the first strong system of the Fall Season — has made landfall along the Pacific Northwest Coast, and it provides an opportunity to see how GOES-R IFR Probabilities perform with extratropical systems.

Several aspects of the IFR Probability Fields — which are far more coherent than the Brightness Temperature Difference fields — require explanation. There is an increase in the IFR Probability off the coast of Oregon in the 4th image in the loop. This jump — from IFR Probabilities near 55% (orange) to Probabilities near 68% (darker red-orange) — is likely caused by a changed in the Rapid Refresh model output that is suggesting a greater likelihood of low-level saturation. Note that this region in the very next image displays the characteristic signature of the boundary between day-time predictors being used and night-time predictors being used (IFR Probabilities drop from orange yellow — 39%). In the early part of the animation, the IFR Probability field off the Oregon Coast maintains the flat (un-pixelated) look that is characteristic of a region where only Rapid Refresh model output is being used in the computation of IFR Probabilities because high cloud are present. GOES-R Cloud Thickness (of the highest water-phase cloud, not shown) would not be computed in this region, then, for two reasons: ice and mixed-phase clouds are present and it is during twilight conditions.

IFR and near-IFR Conditions are observed along the coast at Newport and North Bend before the frontal passage. IFR Probabilities are high along the coastal range, somewhat reduced in the Willamette Valley, high again in the Cascades, and lower again downstream of the Cascades. Note how the higher IFR Probabilities do take into account the presence of terrain; brightness temperature difference fields use only satellite data. Thus, after the frontal passage, when near-surface winds are west and south-west (that is, upslope), the IFR Probabilities remain high on the windward side of mountain slopes. (They are typically high, for example, at Sexton Summit — over KSXT — where IFR conditions are present until about 1100 UTC)

Suomi-NPP Day/Night band data can sometimes be used to discern regions of cloudiness. However, the Moon Phase is now a waning crescent that has not quite risen at the times shown in the animation above.