GOES-T launched on March 1st

 GOES-T, the third satellite of NOAA's Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites had a successful launch yesterday. GOES-T joins GOES East and GOES West. After going through a testing period, GOES-T now known as GOES 18 will become GOES West. In May, GOES 18 will replace GOES 17, which has had some problems with its Advance Baseline Imager, as GOES West. GOES 17 will then become an in-orbit spare.

Direct link to abbreviated launch video on YouTube from SciNews

The Advance Baseline Imager (ABI) is new to the current series of GOES satellites in the GOES R series, currently GOES 16, GOES 17, and GOES 18. Here is a short description from NASA's GOES-T blog on what the Advance Baseline Imager does:

The Advanced Baseline Imager (ABI) is the primary instrument on the GOES-R Series for imaging Earth’s weather, oceans, and environment. ABI is used for a wide range of applications related to severe weather, hurricanes, aviation, natural hazards, the atmosphere, oceans, and cryosphere. ABI scans Earth five times faster with four times the resolution and three times the number of channels than previous GOES for more accurate and reliable forecasts and severe weather warnings.

Natural hazards referred to above includes detecting wildfires.

Two recent articles from space dot com discuss a malfunction in the GOES 17 ABI due to a lack of coolant in the ABI system due to a debris getting into the coolant piping system (see this article from space dot com).The ABI systems in GOES-T now GOES 18, has some fixes in the ABI so that this malfunction does not reoccur. I hope that this fix works. Here is a second article on Space dot com describing the GOES-T launch and what the satellite will do in orbit.

There are a nice group of articles on NASA's GOES-T blog covering various aspects of GOES-T including the launch and first stage rocket separation, main engine restart, and separation from the rocket.

2021 wildfire season: wildfires spawn severe weather and IMET deployments

Wildfires continue to devastate the Western United States. As you can see from the NOAA Satellites video wildfires can create their own weather.

direct link to YouTube video from NOAASatellites

Speaking of weather affecting wildfires, when NWS Incident Meteorologists are deployed to wildfire they provide site specific forecasts so that wildland firefighters on the ground and in the air may be alert to how changing weather conditions will affect the fire. These specific forecasts help wildland firefighters stay safe.

I just checked the NWS Incident Meteorologist Office Facebook page, something I do almost daily, to take a look at IMET deployments from July 26 through August 1, 2021. By my count 20 NWS Incident Meteorologists, including two IMET trainees have been deployed to 18 wildfires in the Western United States. To summarize:

Montana: Alder Creek Fire (IMET and IMET trainee), Harris Fire, Burnt Peak Fire, Stateline Complex, Poverty Flats Fire, Granite Pass Complex, and Hay Creek Fire.

Oregon: Elbow Creek Fire, Jack Fire, Middle Fork Complex, Bootleg Fire

Washington: Cedar Creek Fire, (IMET and IMET trainee), Sherwood Fire

Idaho: Character Complex, Mud Lick Fire, Dixie Fire

Colorado: Morgan Creek Fire

California: Dixie Fire

Any errors in this listing are mine.

NOAA Satellites detect wildfire smoke

I try to keep an eye on videos and images shared by NOAA's National Environmental Satellite Data and Information Service (NESDIS) in part because satellites fascinate and as I learn I want to share this with you. NESDIS shares videos in their Earth from Orbit page. Yesterday, July 15th, NESDIS shared a video (also available on their YouTube Channel) called "Wildfire Smoke Blankets the U.S." A fascinating two minute video where you learn how NOAA's different satellites (GOES and the polar orbitors) monitor smoke and how this data is fed into models used by wildland firefighters and others to monitor wildfire smoke conditions. The July 15th Earth from Orbit by NESDIS may be found here, you may want to go I would recommend taking a couple of minutes to read the text that goes with their video. They say in part

Wildfire activity amid extreme heat and drought has resulted in smoke blanketing much of the United States and Canada. As of July 14, 2021, 68 active large fires in 12 states have burned more than one million acres of land in the U.S. To date in 2021, more than 34,000 fires have burned more than two million acres. This is the most fires in the January to July time period since 2011. July is relatively early to see wildfire activity of this magnitude.

NOAA satellites are monitoring the fires, their smoke output, and air quality effects from the smoke. The fires are injecting smoke 40,000 feet into the atmosphere and compromising air quality.

About NOAA's satellites

When I wrote last week about how NOAA Satellites are used to detect wildfires, I knew that it was time for me to write a post introducing all of the satellites that NOAA owns and/or operates. Before I get to that, There are many countries that have satellites in orbit. NOAA’s National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service (NESDIS) has an international and information service known as NOAA Satellite and Information Service International and Interagency Affairs Division. Their mission is to 

build relationships with government organizations around the world. … NESDIS and NOAA could not accomplish all they do without the scientific and data exchange with our partners build on years of cooperation and collaboration.

Some of their important collaborations with other governments for the use of satellite data include but are not limited to Europe, Japan, Taiwan, India, Korea, China, Australia, and Canada. You may read more about these country’s satellites on the NOAA Satellite and Information Service International and Interagency Affairs Division webpage 

NOAA currently owns and operates nine satellites. There are currently four GOES geostationary satellites, all are in geostationary orbit. GOES-16 (aka GOES-R is in orbit as GOES-East while GOES-17 (aka GOES-S) is in orbit as GOES-West. GOES-14 and 15 are spares. Polar orbiting satellites complete 14 orbits from north to south pole per day. The DSCOVR satellite is the Deep Space Climate Observatory, providing valuable information to forecasters for space weather such as solar winds and geomagnetic storms. For more information on these satellites (with some links you can follow for more information on individual satellites) go to NESDIS's currently flying page. You may also want to follow leads elsewhere on the NESDIS page and check out the videos on the NESDIS YouTube Channel (there are a lot of wonderful videos, some very short).

NOAA operates but does not own the following satellites:

• Suomi NPP 
• Jason-3: for more information go to these NOAA sites  here AND here 
• four DMSP satellites
• EWS-G1 satellite

I found this story map done by NOAA NESDIS on their home page (see link in first paragraph). It is a nice story map with maps, videos, pictures and other information. You will learn about the history of the development of satellites and how satellites are used today. I hope that the embed code that I used works for you, if not, you may find the story map at this link on storymaps.arcgis

More on Himawari 8

I continue to be interested in Himawari 8 out of the Meteorological Satellite Center of the Japan Meteorological Agency which I first wrote about on March 13th. I am in the process of doing some doing some reading about Himawari 8 on the internet. I hope, but am not certain that at some point in the future I will be able to write a little more about Himawari on this blog. I understand that yes, Himawari imagery can show good imagery of wildfires (or bush fires). Here is a 4 second clip of Himawari 8 imagery of a November 2018 bush fire in Queensland Australia.


direct link to video

While I am continuing to try to learn more about Himawari 8, I thought I'd share some imagery from Himawari 8 of Super Typhoon Mangkhut that devastated the Philippines in September 2018. Here is an article from the BBC and a write up on Mangkhut on Wikipedia


direct link to video

GOES 17 and Himawari-8: coverage in the central Pacific

Some of you may remember that I wrote three posts in October 2017 of some Aero Clipper research in Guam, some of the links in these articles have expired but I am leaving these posts up. This research was done with the cooperation of the National Weather Service Weather Forecast Office in Guam. My friends at the NWS Guam WFO were wonderful, answering my questions via Facebook Messenger. I have periodically kept in touch with the Guam WFO since then.

I have been writing about GOES-17 aka GOES West recently. I was wondering if the GOES-17 coverage area reached as far west as Guam, I thought that it might but was not sure. So, I contacted them on Facebook this past Monday, March 11th) and asked them. They were. as always, very helpful. I learned that Guam and the nearby islands in the Mariana Islands are barely on the western edge of the GOES_17 coverage area. While technically visible on GOES-17 images, they get much better coverage from the Japanese Meteorological Agency's Himawari-8 satellite. I will get to those images a little later, but first some information about the Himawari-8. The Himawari-8 was launched on October 7, 2014 and flies in a geostationary orbit (22,300 miles above the Earth) at 140° East (I think). According to an October 2014 press release from the World Meteorological Association announcing the launch of Himawari-8:

Himawari-8, with the first of 16-channel imager onboard geostationary satellites with highest resolution of 0.5 km and a full disk scanning of 10 minutes,  heralds the advent of a new generation of meteorological geostationary satellites. Satellite launches in the 2015-2019 timeframe are also planned by the China Meteorological Administration, EUMETSAT, India Space Research Organization, Korea Meteorological Administration, the Russian Federal Service for Hydrometeorology and Environmental Monitoring (Roshydromet) and U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

To read a brief description of the about the Himawari (AHI) Imager go here. The home page of the Meteorological Satellite Center (MSC) of the Japanese Meteorological Agency may be found here, and is chock of all kinds of information that some of you might find useful including but not limited to Himawari-8 images and a users guide. Finally, NOAA has a page dedicated to Himaware-8 images that may be found here.

Ok, back to satellite imagery of Guam and the adjoining Mariana Islands (part of Micronesia). First I asked my friends at the WFO Guam to clarify the geography of the region to provide a context for the two satellite images that I will share at the end of this article:

For the geographical stuff, some circles confirm all of the region Micronesia, but most refer to Guam as part of the Mariana Islands, Guam being the southern most; the Marshall Islands are the easternmost of Micronesia, Palau being the westernmost. All of these island regions are part of our forecasting domain.

My friends at WFO Guam told me that their forecasting area of responsibility (AOR) "as the Equator to 25N latitude, from 130E longitude to the Date Line." That is quite a large area. I did a rough image of their AOR from Google Earth. Unfortunately Google Earth does not show the international date line, but it does show the antimeridian (180° from the prime meridian) that goes through Greenwich England. The antimeridian is not co-terminus with the international date line, but it is close enough and my friends at WFO Guam said that my image from Google Earth is a good representation of their AOR.

Finally! Now for the two annotated satellite images that my friends from the WFO Guam sent to me on March 11th. I don't know date of this satellite imagery. You can easily see that Hawaii shows up in the GOES West image with Guam, the Mariana Islands and the rest of Micronesia is on the far western edge of the coverage area. Then note in the Himawari image how clearly Guam and the rest of Micronesia shows in this image.

Thanks to the NWS Guam WFO for sharing and annotating this image

Thanks to the NWS Guam WFO for sharing and annotating this image

GOES-16 video imagery (February 13th)

Thanks to the folk at the NOAA Satellites Office for sharing some great videos from GOES-16. I thought that some of you might be interested in see these wonderful images from GOES-16. All the videos were shared on the NOAA - Satellite Information Service GOES-16 webpage on February 13th.




Direct link to video from NOAA Satellites on Youtube (GOES-16 Feb 13th strengthening winter storm)


Direct link to video from NOAA Satellites on Youtube (GOES-16 water vapor imagery)

Satellite imagery of smoke from Chilean wildfires (Jan 27th)

The other day, I wrote about the wildfires currently burning in Chile, in particular referencing the great extensive coverage of Bill Gabbert of Wildfire Today (see posts tagged Chile on Wildfire Today) and Fire Aviation (see posts tagged Chile on Fire Aviation). As I write this, I believe that Bill is still embedded with the crew Global Supertanker's 747, T-944.

Some of you may know that for the last couple of months I have been reading and learning about NOAA/NASA's satellites, mostly about the new GOES-16 (formerly GOES-R) that was launched on November 19, 2016. Recall that GOES-16 and the other geostationary operational environmental satellite orbit at an altitude of approximately 22,300 miles above the Earth, in a geostationary orbit.

NOAA/NASA has other satellites orbiting the Earth in addition to the GOES series, you may go to NOAA Satellites and Information Services "Currently Flying Page" for a brief introduction (and a great image) of these satellites. Today I am interested in one of the polar orbiting satellites, the Suomi NPP (Near Polar-Orbiting Partnership) satellite which I will get to in a minute. Unlike the satellites in the GOES series and other geostationary operational environmental satellites from other countries, the polar orbit satellites, orbit the Earth in a polar orbit at about 800 kilometers (or 500 miles above the Earth).

The Suomi NPP Satellite is a joint effort of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and an organization known as the NPOESS Integrated Program Office. It orbits the earth at an altitude of 833 km in a (near?) polar orbit (see the Suomi NPP status page for more information.  It is a part of the Joint Polar Satellite System, and has five instruments: VIIRS,  CrIS, ATMS, OMPS, and CERES FM5. For more information about these instruments, please go here (the information is complete but perhaps a little technical. For our purposes, I am interested in VIIRS or the Visible/Infrared Imager/Radiometer Suite (VIIRS).

Among the capabilities of VIIRS is its "multichannel imaging capabilities to support the acquisition of high resolution atmospheric imagery and generation of a variety of applied products including: visible and infrared imaging of hurricanes and detection of fires, smoke, and atmospheric aerosols" (obtained on February 3, 2017 from https://www.nsof.class.noaa.gov/data_available/npp/index.htm).

And it is the ability of VIIRS on the Suomi NPP to detect fires and smoke that leads me today's post. The image below was taking by the Suomi NPP over the west coast of Chile on January 27, 2017. You will the large smoke plume for that fire. Pretty cool, huh?

Obtained on February 3, 2017 from https://www.nesdis.noaa.gov/imagery-and-data, their image of day for 2/1/17

And you will want to read this information from the Suomi NPP Facebook Page posted on February 1st



The links on this page were current on the date I wrote this article.

How NOAA and Researchers have been Preparing for GOES-R/16

I've spent some time over the last few days trying to learn more about GOES-R/16. I've already mentioned some of the websites that I visit in posts on November 21,2016, and November 22,2016. For the very latest on new developments by GOES-R/16 you will want NOAA's Satellite Information Service's GOES-R/16 blog.

One of the things on my mind as I go about doing reading on GOES-R/16 is to keep an eye out for good, understandable information on GOES-R/16 that I may share with you (link to in my blog). To that end, I was checking out a couple of NOAA satellite's social media accounts a couple of days ago. I already knew that NOAA Satellites has a twitter account (@NOAASatellites) where they share great images and videos from their satellites as well as images and videos from the satellites of other countries, e.g. Japan's Himawari-8 satellite (shared by NOAA Satellites on January 5th). Often they provide a link where you may go for more information about the image you are seeing. Among the images that @NOAA Satellites shares are images from GOES East and GOES West.

I went to NOAA Satellite's Facebook Page late last Friday and found some information on for how researchers and scientists have been using GOES-14 (the back-up in orbit spare) in rapid scan mode to prepare for GOES-R/16. You may also want to learn more about the Super Rapid Scan (SRS) capability of GOES-14 and how researchers have been using GOES-14 in SRS mode for the last few years in an article from the Space Science and Engineering Center at the University of Wisconison-Madison with an interview with the Director of NOAA's Advanced Satellite's Product Branch (ASPB), Tim Schmidt, the article may be found here.

As I find more interesting links on GOES-R/16 I will, from time to time, share them here.

A little about GOES-R/16 & LA County Air Operations (2016)

I continue doing some background reading on research on GOES satellites including GOES-R/16 which is in geostationary orbit and is undergoing operational testing. NOAA's satellite and information service has a GOES-R blog is updated as warranted to keep us apprised of what GOES-R/16 is doing. For example, according to their January 5th post, scientists received the first data from the magnetometer on GOES-R/16. Here is an excerpt from the GOES-R Blog's January 5th post describing the magnetometer on GOES-R/16 and the Earth's geomagnetic field

The GOES-16 MAG samples five times faster than previous GOES magnetometers, which increases the range of space weather phenomena that can be measured. . . . Earth’s geomagnetic field acts as a shield, protecting us from hazardous incoming solar radiation.  Geomagnetic storms, caused by eruptions on the surface of the sun, can interfere with communications and navigation systems, cause damage to satellites, cause health risks to astronauts, and threaten power utilities. When a solar flare occurs, GOES-16 will tell space weather forecasters where it happened on the sun and how strong it was. Using that information, forecasters can determine if the explosion of energy is coming toward Earth or not.

In the meantime, while I am doing my research and reading on GOES this week, I have been dealing with a lingering sinus infection so don't have quite as much energy as I usually do. I do hope to write something telling you a little more about the research and reading on GOES that I have been doing. However, I am not quite ready to that yet.

In the meantime, here is a video for you to enjoy from the LA County Fire Department highlighting LA County Air Operations in 2016. Thanks to my friends at the B10 NJ Wildland Fire Page who shared this video last week on their videos of the week page. Absolutely incredible photography from some great photographers. Enjoy!

Matt this video is for you, may you continue to fly in favorable tail winds with the helos.


Direct link to video from LA County Fire Department

GOES 13-15 (N,O,P) or earlier: visible, infrared, and water vapor imagery

Some of you may recall that on December 14th I wrote a little about GOES 13-15 (GOES N,O,P) series. At the time I am writing this, GOES-13 is currently operating as GOES East at 75 degrees west longitude and GOES-15 is currently operating as GOES West at 135 degrees west longitude. GOES-14 is in on orbit storage at 105 degrees west longitude.

I have been spending some time prowling NOAA and NASA websites and Youtube to look for some videos to share with you of visible, infrared and water vapor from GOES. Before I do so, I found another good NOAA website showing current imagery from GOES East and GOES west. The website is satellite Images from the NWS. I like this website. On the right you will see these current images: visible, infrared, and water vapor. Clicking on the image takes that image to the center of the webpage where you will a short description of how to read the imagery, that is what the different colors mean. You also have the option of seeing a single image or a loop. If you are so inclined, you might want to spend a little time on that website before looking at the videos.

The NASA Earth Sciences Office has a webpage with current interactive GOES imagery, if you go to their page of current infrared imagery for GOES East, you will see a labeled scale describing the color imagery (the same scale is on the page for GOES West).

My intention and hope here is to embed one video each of visible, infrared, and water vapor imagery from GOES 13-15 or their predecessors. In order to try to keep things simple, I have tried to steer away from the many videos I found combining visible and infrared imagery. 

GOES East (GOES-12) visible imagery of Hurricane Katrina (uploaded by NOAA Satellites) making landfall on the gulf coast on August 29, 2005.

Direct link to video

GOES-13 infrared imagery of the beginnings of Hurricane Patricia in the Pacific in late October 2015. The video is uploaded by the CIMSS Satellite Blog from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Space Science and Engineering Center.  There are date and time stamps at the bottom of the video (you might have to be in full screen mode) along with information about the satellite. There is also a date and time stamp in the upper left.

Direct link to video

GOES East water vapor imagery over Eastern US for the month of January 2016 in a loop of about 2 minutes, uploaded by NOAA Geostationary Satellites. At the bottom of the video (you might have to be in full screen mode) you will see the date and time stamp of the images along with information about the satellite.

Direct link to video

A little about GOES 13-15 (GOES N,O,P) series

I don’t know about you, but knowing that GOES-R/16 has been launched, is in geostationary orbit and soon to be ready for operational testing got me interested in what the GOES N,O,P (13-15) series of satellites do. I posted some information on the launch dates and status of GOES 13-15 on November 30th. To briefly review:

GOES-13 is currently operating as GOES East at 75 degrees West longitude

GOES-14 is currently located at 105 degrees west longitude. She is an on-orbit spare.

GOES-15 is currently operating as GOES West at 135 degrees west longitude.

I spent some time doing research on the internet and found some pages from NOAA and NASA that are listed as no longer being updated and are “archived” with perhaps outdate links. I have tried to only link to NOAA pages on the GOES N,O,P series that either are not archived or appear to be updated on a regular basis.

The United States has two Geostationary Environmental Satellites that are active and supplying data, GOES East (currently GOES-13) and GOES West (currently GOES -15). The European Organisation for the Exploitation of meteorological Satellites (EUMETSTAT) have two geostationary satellites, one over the Indian Ocean the second over Western Africa. The Japan Meteorological Agency operates one geostationary satellite over the Western Pacific. All in all five geostationary satellites, and by international agreement, they assist all countries. ( http://www.srh.weather.gov/srh/jetstream/remote/goes.html, accessed on December 8, 2016 )

The current status of GOES may be found at the GOES Operational Status Page (NOAA Office of Satellite and Product Operations).

Instruments on GOES N,O,P series - GOES 13-15 (I found most, if not all of the information on the instruments on the GOES N,O,P along with other background information in the GOES-N Mission Brochure (covers GOES N,O,P); accessed via GOES-N Status on December 8, 2016)

Imager: The imager supplies continuous data over five channels. Earth images produced by GOES East (GOES 13) and GOES West (GOES 15) include images of the surface, oceans, severe storm development, cloud cover, cloud temperature and height, surface temperature and water vapor. “It allows users to identify fog at night, distinguish between water and ice clouds during daytime hours, detect hot spots (such as volcanoes and forest fires), locate a hurricane eye, and acquire measurements of ground and sea surface temperatures (GOES-N Mission Brochure (covers GOES N,O,P), p. 10; accessed via GOES-N Status on December 8, 2016).  

Operational Meteorologists from the National Weather Service and elsewhere are heavy users of this image data. You have probably seen images from either GOES East or GOES West on weather broadcasts.

GOES East and GOES West produce three different types of images: visible light, infrared and water vapor. The National Weather Service’s JetStream online weather education pages has a nice discussion of geostationary satellite images where you may learn a little about each type of image along with some sample images.

Combined visible and infrared imagery, colorized infrared imagery, and water vapor imagery may be accessed from NOAA Satellite and Information Service - imagery and data page. Note that other satellite imagery is also available on this page.

Sounder: The sounder is a separate piece of equipment on the GOES with limited sounding capabilities. The sounder provides temperature and moisture data at various levels in the atmosphere, somewhat like weather balloons, but not as detailed. Although this sounder data is not used directly by forecasters, it is important for input into computer-based weather prediction models. As I write this, the GOES East (GOES-13) sounder is not operational.

Space: There are three instruments on GOES 13-15 that provide data on space weather, including but not limited to solar weather. This data is eventually fed to NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center who in turns feeds information, advisories and warnings on space weather to local NWS Weather Forecast Offices (e.g. when flares from our sun might reach earth and possibly cause geomagnetic disturbances such as auroras, possible communication and electrical disruption.

I’d like to thank a couple of friends who are operational meteorologists at the National Weather Service for their help as I learned about GOES 13-15. This article is possible because of your e-mails and telephone conversations. Thank-you!

Over the next few months, I will be keeping an eye out for interesting images and other data from GOES East and GOES West as well as following the operational testing, as I can, of GOES-R/16. As appropriate, write more articles. 

GOES-R is now GOES-16 and a little about GOES 13 to 15

GOES-R, the first of the latest next generation of NOAA's Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites (GOES) achieved geostationary orbit on November 29th at approximately 22,000 miles above the earth. More information may be found in the November 30th article on a GOES-R launch blog from NOAA's Satellite and Information Service. You may find my earlier articles on GOES R here (with links).

I don't know about you, but I have been wondering about the history of GOES and thanks to a reminder from one of my friends at a National Weather Service Weather Forecast Office, I found a NOAA webpage with a brief history of GOES.

Each GOES is assigned a letter at launch and once it achieved geostationary orbit it is assigned a number. GOES-16 (aka GOES-R) is the first of what I believe is the sixth generation of GOES. GOES 1 through 12 (representing the first four generations of GOES) have been decommissioned. 

The fifth generation of GOES is GOES N to P, or GOES 13 to 15. For more on the history of GOES, including a brief description of each generation of GOES and a list of their launch dates and decommission dates, see this NOAA webpage on a brief history of GOES. NOAA has a nice FAQ page on GOES, discussing GOES satellites in general as well as GOES-R (GOES-16) that may be found here. If you go to the brief history of GOES and click on "Earth NOW from GOES" you will see images from GOES East and GOES West.

Back to GOES 13 to 15 (N-P).

• GOES 13 (GOES N) was launched on May 24, 2006 and became operational on April 14, 2010. It is currently operating as GOES East at 75 degrees west longitude. 
• GOES 14 (GOES O) was launched on June 27, 2009 and is currently located at 105 degrees west longitude in on-orbit storage. It serves as a back-up for either GOES East or GOES West. For example, when GOES 13 was out of service while some technical issues in early 2013 were being corrected, GOES 14 operated as GOES East. 
• GOES 15 (GOES P) was launched on March 4, 2010, becoming operational on December 6, 2011. GOES 14 is currently operating as GOES West at 135 degrees west longitude. 

You might want to check out the GOES status page, where I found information on GOES 13 to 15.

A little more about GOES-R

I am writing a quick follow-up to the article that I posted on November 21st about the launch of the next generation weather satellite currently known as GOES-R. I am sharing two videos about GOES-R (which will be renamed GOES 16)

The first video is a little over a minute long. This video highlights some of the new technology and instrumentation in GOES-R. Video credit: NASA Goddard Media Studio


direct link to video uploaded by NOAA Satellites on Youtube

The second video, also from NOAA Satellites, is almost three minutes long, going into a little more detail about the new technology and instrumentation found in GOES-R and how GOES-R will improve weather forecasting. Video Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center / Michael Starobin.


direct link to video by NOAA Satellites on Youtube

New Weather Satellite - GOES-R - Launched

I don't know about you, but I was real excited to see (and watch live via NASA TV on my computer) the launch of NOAA's newest weather satellite on November 19th. Here is an eight minute video
of the launch. The launch vehicle was an United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket. Video credit: NASA


direct link to video from NASA

GOES-R (which will be renamed GOES-16) is the first of four "next generation" of weather satellites. GOES stands for Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite). As I understand it, GOES-R will transition to her geostationary orbit about 22,000 miles over the Earth in the next two weeks. Over the next several months engineers will be checking out her systems after which time she will go live. According to NOAA's November 19th article, GOES-R heads to orbit, will improve weather forecasting:

GOES-R is flying six new instruments, including the first operational lightning mapper in geostationary orbit. This new technology will enable scientists to observe lightning, an important indicator of where and when a storm is likely to intensify. Forecasters will use the mapper to hone in on storms that represent the biggest threat. Improved space weather sensors on GOES-R will monitor the sun and relay crucial information to forecasters so they can issue space weather alerts and warnings. Data from GOES-R will result in 34 new, or improved, meteorological, solar and space weather products.

Information about the launch, with photos and videos as well as links you may go to read about GOES-R science and mission may be found on a special GOES-R page. One of the many links on the GOES-R page is a listing (with links) of most of the new products on GOES-R. Post launch articles on GOES-R (soon to be GOES 16) may be found on this page from NOAA's Satellite and Information Service.

I close with two short and well done videos from NOAA Satellites describing how GOES-R will be used for weather forecasting. In the first video you will learn about some of the new instruments on GOES-R. Video credit: SciJinks


direct link to video

In the second video you will learn about how GOES-R will help NWS weather forecasters. Video credit: SciJinks.


direct link to video

Added on November 22, 2016: I share two more videos on November 22nd from NOAA Satellites where they discuss the new instrumentation and technology found in GOES-R. Video of launch edited to embed launch video from NASA.