video: A new animation of satellite observations shows the clouds associated with several outbreaks of severe weather from May 26 to June 1, 2013, over the south central United States.
The last week of May experienced daily tornado outbreaks throughout the Midwest, fueled by moisture streaming northward out of the Gulf and heated by a strong dose of early summer sun.
According to the National Weather Service in Norman, Okla., an EF-5 tornado touched down at around 6:03 p.m. CDT near El Reno. The storm then moved into western and central portions of Oklahoma City, producing other tornadoes. Additional storms developed to the west and moved over the same areas as the first storm generating significant flooding in the Oklahoma City metro area.
All of the weather systems that spawned these outbreaks are shown in this video, which uses visible-light data of clouds from NOAA's GOES-14 satellite, overlaid on a U.S. map created with imagery from MODIS data, an instrument that flies aboard both the NASA Aqua and Terra satellites. This visualization was created by the NASA GOES Project at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
Credit: This visualization was created by the NASA GOES Project at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.