Erik R. Nielsen

@eniels13.bsky.social

Colorado State Atmospheric Science Ph.D. '19 | Texas A&M Meteorology '13 | Studies concurrent, collocated tornado and flash flood events | San Antonio Spurs Fan

This is something I have never seen before on satellite. Clouds perfectly outlining roads. Just incredibly neat imagery of Houston, Texas this morning. Massive shoutout to Ethan Mok who discovered it (on Twitter).

Attached is a special sounding launched at 2031Z March 15th, 2026 from College Station, TX valid at 21Z. Data has been sent to be assimilated into the models. Launch ahead of both the dry line and cold front currently working through central Texas.

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Special sounding launched from College Station, TX at 2028Z February 14th, 2026 valid at ~21Z. This was launched just ahead of the convective line. Warm nose from last sounding has eroded and low-level hodograph is impressive.

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Special sounding launched from College Station, TX at 1730Z February 14th, 2026 valid at 18Z. Skies were a bit overcast with some slight clearing occurring since launch. 21Z balloon is planned.

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Attached is a 1949UTC special sounding from College Station, TX. Balloon was launched between the initial round of storms and ahead of the main frontal boundary. There is some convective contamination between ~540mb and 450mb, as we hit an updraft at this point.

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Below is a November 19th, 2025 1714 UTC special sounding launched as part of our ATMO-251 class from Texas A&M's campus. Sharppy image and sharppy file are attached. Mixed layer parcel is also plotted. Launch was done as morning stratus deck was clearing.

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The Copernicus Sentinel-2 polar-orbiting satellite made an extremely fortuitous pass over Hurricane Melissa right before it made landfall in Jamaica to provide these stunning images of one of the most powerful Atlantic hurricanes in history

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I was worried for my crew mates when I saw them circling in the eye for over 20 mins. Looks like the very rough ride was confirmed. Plane had to leave early. They reported svr turb and a "sawtooth" eye. Looks like they moved 600-700ft up & down during this stretch in ~1 min.

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This has probably already been posted here, but Melissa has displayed a classic mesovortex pattern that can be modeled in the simplest 2D atmospheric models ("nondivergent barotropic models"). Here's a comparison of this morning's VIS sat and Kossin and Schubert (2001) experiments.

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Looking back at the rapid intensification of #Melissa, two things really stand out to me: 1) there were *5* consecutive six-hourly periods of RI 2) an RI period began when the storm was already at Category 4 intensity The red entries here highlight when an RI period began (30+ kt in 24 hr).

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The most recent recon data suggests that Melissa continues to intensify. Central pressure now down to 907 mb and a dropsonde released in the northeast eyewall measured a mean wind in the lower 150m of 185 knots (213 mph). This hurricane is truly in rarefied air as far as Atlantic hurricanes.

Text summary of wind data from dropsonde released in northeast eyewall of Melissa, showing mean wind of 185 knots in lowest 150 m.