High‐Spatial Resolution Space‐Based Observations in the Upper Troposphere and Upper Mesosphere of Wavelike Features Produced by Hurricane Ian

Abstract A new high‐spatial resolution camera on the International Space Station used OH nightglow in the H‐band to image the ground at an 70 m pixel footprint over an 280 km swath and maintained this resolution during its 1.5 s exposure. Near 0405 UT on 28 September 2022 moon down images obtained over the eyewall of the category 4 Hurricane Ian revealed short‐horizontal wavelength (5 km) instabilities with even finer scale (1–2 km) perpendicular structures, similar to those identified in recent modeling. Images taken (10 s apart) are used to separate these tropospheric features from atmospheric gravity waves (AGWs) imaged at 87 km. Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite 16 (GOES‐16) data were used to estimate the altitudes of the tropospheric features. Available auxiliary data were used to show that the AGWs plausibly originated from close to Ian's eyewall 1–2 hr earlier.