At 5:04 PM local time (2104 UTC) on 1 July 2025, the newest member of the geostationary ring was launched into orbit. The MTG-I3 satellite (to be renamed Meteosat 13 upon commissioning) represents a first for EUMETSAT: a hyperspectral sounder in geostationary orbit. While EUMETSAT has long supported hyperspectral sounders in low-earth orbit with the Infrared Atmospheric Sounding Interferometer (IASI) aboard the MetOp series of satellites, the Meteosat Third Generation Infrared Sounder (MTG-IRS) will, for the first time, provide continuously updated hyperspectral observations over Europe.

Hyperspectral infrared observations are some of the most impactful inputs into numerical weather models as they contain information about the spatial and vertical distribution of temperature, water vapor, and clouds. Level 2 products will retrieve profiles of temperature, humidity, and other atmospheric characteristics from these spectra.

MTG-IRS promises 1960 channels across the middle and longwave portions of the infrared spectrum. While IASI observes more channels and and a broader, more continuous spectrum, the much improved temporal resolution that is possible from geostationary orbit will enable forecasters to monitor rapidly-evolving environments and scientists to unlock new understanding of key atmospheric processes. The scanning strategy for MTG-IRS involves repeating over a sequence of four local area coverage (LAC) regions. The region over Europe, LAC4, will be sampled every 30 mins, while the other regions will be sampled in small bursts separated by a few hours. For more on MTG-IRS and its scan strategy, visit the Data Guide.

The satellite also supports the Sentinel 4 mission, which will monitor trace gasses and aerosols from geostationary orbit. This will be accomplished through the Ultraviolet-Visible-Near IR (UVN) imaging spectrometer mounted aboard the satellite, which will provide approximately hourly views over Europe. More about Sentinel 4 is available here.

While many EUMETSAT launches are handled by the ESA launch facility in French Guyana, the launch for this payload was contracted out to Space-X and launched from the Kennedy Space Center. The same launch pad, 39A, that supported flights to the moon and numerous Space Shuttle flights was used for this trip to geostationary orbit. As is common with launches from Kennedy Space Center, this area was well-sampled by a GOES-19 mesoscale scan. The true color view from SSEC Real Earth shows the brief rocket plume that was present right after launch; it dissipated within just a few minutes.

Interestingly enough, the plume is also visible on the SO2 RGB imagery as a distinctly different color than the existing cloud coverage to the southeast. The SO2 signature is also present longer than the visible plume is. Note how there is also a brief flash of the plume in the far upper right corner of the animation right at launch time that is not present on the true color view.

The United States is hoping to launch a geostationary hyperspectral spounding satellite to cover a swath of the western hemisphere with similar capabilities as part of the GeoXO program that will replace the current generation of GOES satellites. The launch is anticipated in the early 2030s and is projected to revolutionize nowcasting, forecasting, and atmospheric science upon becoming operational.

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True Color imagery over western Japan, above, from three JPSS Satellites (from the NASA Worldview site) show a region with a hazy signature that appears to originate over Kyushu’s main cities of Kumamoto and Fukuoka. Winds at this time are relatively light, as evidenced by the NOAA-21 image, shown below, that includes a dark region within the sun glint.

Advanced Scattermeter (ASCAT) data from a fortuitous overpass from Metop-B (source), shown below, confirms the region of very light winds around Kyushu.

Aerosol Optical Depth (scaled from 0-5) computed from Suomi NPP and NOAA-20 is shown below. The haze does not appear to be from active fires based on this animation of shortwave infrared imagery from Himawari-9.

Air Quality Indices, below, (from this site), show the worst near-surface Air Quality over southern Kyushu. This is a good reminder that satellite detection of AOD views the entire atmosphere — to get the best description of Air Quality, use both surface and satellite detection.

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Editor’s Note: This is my last contribution to the CIMSS Satellite Blog, as I am retiring today after 30 years (plus 1 month, a week and a day) with the University of Wisconsin-Madison. It has been a great honor to talk about beautiful and informative satellite imagery in this space, starting in 2006 with this blog post on Parallax. I hope my writings (1) have been helpful and (2) have been accurate. It’s honestly the best job I could imagine having!

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1-minute Mesoscale Domain Sector GOES-19 (GOES-East) Infrared and Visible images (above) showed persistent deep convection (with sporadic lightning activity) near the center of circulation of Tropical Depression 2 (TD2), which developed in the Bay of Campeche (just off the coast of Mexico) around 2100 UTC on 28 June 2025. Periodic convective bursts contained overshooting tops that exhibited infrared brightness temperatures as cold as -80C (brighter white pixels embedded within darker black regions), but overall the system remained somewhat disorganized throughout the day.

A GOES-19 Visible image at 1619 UTC with an overlay of Metop-C ASCAT winds (below) depicted a surface circulation, with wind speeds in the 20-25 knot range within the southeast quadrant.

GOES-19 Infrared images with an overlay of deep-layer wind shear (below) indicated that TD2 was embedded within an environment of high wind shear, which was an unfavorable factor in terms of further intensification.

===== 29 June Update =====

By 1500 UTC on 29 June, TD2 had become better organized, and was named Tropical Storm Barry. For a short time, the partially exposed low-level circulation center was evident in 1-minute GOES-19 Visible images (above).

A DMSP-17 SSMIS Microwave image at 1301 UTC (below) showed no evidence of a closed eye structure, with only signatures of convection immediately south and east of the storm center.

As was the case during the previous day, TS Barry was still in an unfavorable environment characterized by high values of deep-layer wind shear (below).

On the other hand, the MIMIC Total Precipitable Water product (below) showed abundant moisture in the vicinity of TS Barry, which helped to sustain the development of deep convection near the storm center.

It is interesting to note that TD2 passed over a small patch of slightly warmer Sea Surface Temperature not long before intensifying to become TS Barry (below) — although it’s not clear what role (if any) this played in system intensification.

Wind Shear, Sea Surface Temperature, MIMIC TPW and DMSP Microwave images were sourced from the CIMSS Tropical Cyclones site.

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A cluster of wildfires was burning on both sides of the Northwest Territories / British Columbia border on 28 June 2025 — and 10-minute Full Disk scan GOES-18 (GOES-West) imagery (above) showed that the largest Northwest Territories wildfire produced a sizeable pyrocumulonimbus (pyroCb) cloud, beginning at 2230 UTC. As it drifted northward, the cold canopy of the pyroCb expanded along its west-to-east axis — exhibiting cloud-top infrared brightness temperatures in the -50s C (shades of red).

About 1.5 hours prior to pyroCb development, a NOAA-20 VIIRS True Color RGB image visualized using RealEarth (below) revealed the smoke plumes emanating from these wildfires. Significant values of Fire Radiative Power (larger, darker-red circles) were associated with the largest pyroCb-producing wildfire in the Northwest Territories.

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