Objective overshooting top and anvil temperature couplet detection are one of many product requirements for the GOES-R Advanced Baseline Imager (ABI) Aviation Algorithm Working Group (AWG). Overshooting convective cloud tops indicate strong vertical motions in the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere, and are a proxy for storm intensity. In addition, overshooting tops are often responsible for generating vertically and horizontally propagating gravity waves that can produce strong turbulence for nearby aircraft at cruising altitudes. Brunner et al. (Wea. Forecasting, 2007) show that large IR temperature differences (i.e. couplets) between the overshooting top and a nearby warm region in the thunderstorm anvil is a proxy for storm severity, where the largest differences often relate to the presence of severe winds, hail, and tornadoes at the Earth surface.

This presentation will describe objective methods for day/night overshooting and anvil temperature couplet detection being developed within the GOES-R Aviation AWG. These methods are being tested on AVHRR, MODIS, MSG SEVIRI, and WRF-based simulated ABI proxy datasets, with Visible channel imagery, CloudSat/Calipso, and WRF NWP model output being used as validation datasets. Applications of these methods to current GOES-12 imagery will also be shown.