Today’s DSS event brought us to the wonderful state of North Dakota in the FGF CWA. Unfortunately with no lightning at either DSS event today, I did not get to use the GOES Stoplight product, so I used Octane again. I continue to be highly impressed by the utility of the OCTANE products. You know the saying “A picture is worth a thousand words”? Well, to me, that is exactly what the cloud top cooling and divergence product embodies. There are so many features that can be picked out from this. Near the bottom left, there are multiple updraft attempts that try but most fail. It shows multiple storms developing in McPherson and Dickey Counties with cooling cloud tops and increasing cloud top divergence. Further to the west in Emmons county it shows a cloud top cooling signal but it ends up disappearing and subsequently the cloud top divergence decreases. Pairing all of the imagery with a visible band really gives some nice textures to the picture where you can easily point out quickly developing features. I find myself continually migrating back to the Octane products for situational awareness as storms approach the DSS event.

Figure 1: East Meso1 Cloud Top Cooling and Cloud Top Divergence with ENTLN lightning data overlaid.

Dry Thunderstorms