JMA Himawari-9 “Red” Visible (0.64 µm, left) and “Clean” Infrared Window (10.4 µm, right) images, with a cyan * marking the estimated location of the turbulence encounter at 0749 UTC on 21 May [click to play animated GIF | MP4]

Singapore Airlines Flight SQ321 encountered severe turbulence encountered severe turbulence over Myanmar (flightradar24) while en route from London to Singapore on 20-21 May 2024. 10-minute interval JMA Himawari-9 AHI Visible and Infrared images (above) showed areas of deep convection developing over Myanmar, near the estimated location of the turbulence encounter at 0749 UTC on 21 May (southwest of Yangon International Airport, identifier VYYY). The main cluster of rapidly-developing convection just west of the turbulence event exhibited cloud-top infrared brightness temperatures as cold as -80C by 0800 UTC (violet-enhanced pixels); VYYY later reported a thunderstorm from 1030-1100 UTC.

Himawari-9 Water Vapor images with contours of Moderate Or Greater (MOG) Turbulence Probability (source) began to display pockets of 50% or higher MOG probability over that area of Myanmar (yellow contours, just west of the top center portion of the images) at least an hour before the SQ321 event.

JMA Himawari-9 Upper-level Water Vapor (6.2 µm) images, with contours of Moderate Or Greater (MOG) Turbulence [click to play animated GIF | MP4]

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