Pacific Northwest Ship Plumes - Javascript GOES-10 VIS Loop

Pacific Northwest Ship Plumes
GOES-10 Visible Satellite Loop

This loop runs from 1645Z (9:45 a.m. PDT) October 21 to 0030Z October 22 (5:30 p.m. PDT October 21), every 15 minutes except for a few images. The loop has 27 frames totalling just under 4 MB; so it may take several minutes to load even on a fast connection. [The last picture will be labelled "991022/0045 GOES10 VIS".] Once loaded, you can stop the loop, go to the beginning, then step forward frame-by-frame.

SHIP TRAILS
In the animation, you can see the trails being created by several westward-moving ships by watching the western tips of the trails grow from right to left. After being created, the cloud trails are advected (moved by wind). Meanwhile, they are also distorted as the slightly varying wind currents act on parts of each trail. Elsewhere, note some cirrus (thin high clouds) forming then dying in the lee of the Coast Range of southwestern British Columbia. Also, morning fog and stratus evaporates away during the heating of the day around Puget Sound in Washington. Snow-covered peaks stand out as stationary white sentinels in the BC Coast Range, Washington Cascades and Olympic Mountains of northwest Washington. [The slight bounciness of the imagery is typical.]

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