March 15, 2024
NOAA Satellites Monitor Hazardous Early Spring Storm:
NOAA satellites have been tracking a major spring storm system pushing across the central United States this week. The system has prompted NOAA’s National Weather Service (NWS) to issue widespread weather alerts for everything from blizzard warnings to wind advisories and tornado watches across much of the country.
This potent weather system began to intensifying on March 3, as a sweeping cold front brought strong winds that kicked up dust storms—also known as haboobs—across the Desert Southwest. With gusts reaching up to 60 mph, the NWS issued high wind warnings across parts of New Mexico, where blowing dust and sand reduced visibility to near zero in some places, forcing numerous interstate closures.
By that evening, a line of severe thunderstorms developed over the Southern Plains, sweeping across Texas and Oklahoma. Several tornado warnings were issued, while high winds associated with the storms caused significant damage across the region.
On March 4, the line of storms pushed further eastward, causing damaging winds and several tornado reports in Oklahoma, Texas and Louisiana. In New Orleans, some Mardi Gras celebrations were cancelled or rescheduled ahead of the storms as NWS offices advised local officials of the threat.
Farther to the north, the system brought heavy snow and hazardous travel conditions to parts of the northern Plains and Upper Midwest on Tuesday. In Minnesota and Nebraska, heavy snow caused near white-out conditions at times, prompting the NWS to issue blizzard warnings for some areas.
By Wednesday, the storm system brought the threat of more severe thunderstorms and tornadoes to the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern U.S., as blizzard warnings and winter storm warnings covered a good portion of the Upper Midwest. Farther south, wind advisories were issued for a large portion of the South and Ohio Valley, where wind gusts reached up to 50 mph.
As the system moved off the East coast by the end of the week, wind gusts of up to 50 mph continued across the eastern U.S., ushering a brief shot of colder and drier air in its wake.
NOAA's GOES East (GOES-16) satellite closely monitored the system, providing near real-time information as it evolved via its Advanced Baseline Imager (ABI). This instrument helps meteorologists and forecasters monitor water vapor in the atmosphere, track rapidly-changing weather conditions, analyze the structure of the storm, pinpoint areas where it was the most intense, and predict severe weather ahead of time.
Additionally, the ABI’s fire temperature channels identified several wildfire ignitions across the Southern Plains, allowing NWS meteorologists to alert local fire departments to the threat and contain the blazes despite extremely critical fire weather conditions. On top of that, the satellite’s Geostationary Lightning Mapper (GLM) instrument also monitored lightning activity, helping forecasters identify initial thunderstorm development and focus on potentially intensifying storms.
NOAA's Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS) satellites gather global measurements of conditions in the atmosphere, oceans, and on land as they travel around the Earth each day, including temperature, moisture, clouds, rainfall, and more. They can also collect data from polar regions where other observational data are sparse. The information they gathered from this storm system helped meteorologists determine the storm’s direction and intensity as well as increase the accuracy of forecasts, which allow for early warnings that help emergency managers protect lives and property.
Dynamic storm systems like this demonstrate the strength and unpredictability of spring weather. NOAA satellites remain vital for forecasting and monitoring these storms as well as their impacts, helping communities stay informed and prepared.
