NOAA’s Newest Satellite Will Soon Deliver Hi-Res Weather Porn

[GottmitAlex]

NOAA’s Newest Satellite Will Soon Deliver Hi-Res Weather Porn

11/18/2016

TALKING ABOUT THE weather is, for many people, boring. Or maybe you used to feel electric discussing things like warm fronts and lightning strikes, but lately your weather conversations lack, shall we say, thermal convection. But talking about the weather is just like other interpersonal activities: You can spice it up by looking at nice pictures.

The very best weather porn comes from geostationary satellites, and the very best geostationary satellite is launching today at 5:42pm ET. It is called GOES-R, and comes equipped with a 16 channel multispectral imager capable of delivering the hottest, high-resolution cloud-on-cloud action.

Since 1975, the US has kept a trio of weather satellites in geostationary orbit—22,3000 miles up. The cast gets rotated as technology improves, but one is always parked over the west side of the country, another over the east, and a third between the other two as backup. GOES-R will replace GOES-14, the current west side satellite, giving weather fetishists a fourfold improvement in spatial resolution (crisper clouds) and fivefold improvement in refresh rate (smoother storm footage).

 

GOES-R will be able to do close-up rapid scans, bouncing between things like tropical storms and volcanic eruptions, every minute. Meanwhile, it can also stitch together images of the whole hemisphere. If working on rapid scans, the whole disk refresh rate is 10 minutes. With nothing else going on, you get the whole earth every five. Again, the Himawari-8 has some absolutely stellar whole hemisphere time lapses. Peruse away.

But GOES-R has some other equipment that the Himawari-8 does not. One: a lightning detector. If you want to know whether a cluster of thunderstorms is going to develop, check the cloud tops, where lightning flashes will register as momentary brightening.

 

Full story and some video:

https://www.wired.com/2016/11/noaas-newest-satellite-will-soon-deliver-hi-res-weather-porn/

 

[Palmaceae]

Just watched the launch of the GOES-R satellite from SW Florida. it was dark so it was a really cool show!

[Bill H2DB]

  I just watched it from here in Daytona , and I could see the burn until it was almost 500 miles Downrange .

Super clear air , with the front moving through .

I've been  watching launches for 60 years + , and It's still a thrill .  Can't wait for the New upcoming NASA launch vehicle .

If it rivals the Saturns , wow !, 'cause they were astounding .