GOES Water Vapor Animations for 2015
The GOES-13 and GOES-15 Imager provides routine observations at five wavelengths, including 6.5 µm, a wavelength that is sensitive to water vapor absorption (SHyMet lesson). The YouTube animations below show full-disk GOES-13 (GOES-East) and GOES-15 (GOES-West) water vapor images at 3-hour intervals for every day during 2015. GOES-15 shows the remarkable tropical cyclone activity that occurred as a result of warmer-than-normal sea surface temperatures over the central Pacific. Much less hurricane activity occurred in the Atlantic.
Once GOES-R is launched in late 2016, the ABI instrument will provide full-disk images at 5-minute intervals, rather than the 3-hour intervals shown here. The animations from GOES-R will contain 288 images per day rather than 8.