GOES-14 is operating in SRSO-R Mode

By Scott Lindstrom • 9 August 2016

GOES-14 0.62 µm Visible images from 1230 to 1245 UTC on 9 August 2016 [click to play animation]

GOES-14 is in SRSO-R mode from today through 25 August, providing 1-minute imagery over western portions of the United States. The geographic footprint for 9 August 2016 is shown above (realtime images), and the 15-minute animation contains 13 images, versus the normal 2 that GOES-East or GOES-West would provide during routine scanning. This one-minute imagery is being provided to help prepare for GOES-R; GOES-R is scheduled to launch on 4 November, and when operational it will routinely provide 1-minute imagery in mesoscale sectors.

Shown below is a comparison of GOES-15 (GOES-West), GOES-14 and GOES-13 (GOES-East) Visible images covering the longer 1-hour period of 1230-1330 UTC, focusing on a area of thunderstorms over North Texas. During this time, there are 53 images from GOES-14, compared to 7 images from GOES-15 and 5 images from GOES-13 — note how the evolution of overshooting tops is very easy to follow using the 1-minute GOES-14 imagery.

GOES-15 (left), GOES-14 (center and GOES-13 (right) Visible images [click to play animation]

GOES-14 also monitored the dissipation of fog/low stratus clouds over Nebraska, as seen in the animation below. Additional details can be found here.

GOES-14 Visible (0.62 µm) images [click to play animation]

Later in the day, the GOES-14 Visible (0.62 µm) animation below (also available as a large 62 Mbyte animated GIF) showed the development of severe thunderstorms in Montana and Wyoming, which produced several reports of damaging winds and large hail (up to 4.0 inches in diameter). This example is particularly noteworthy due to the fact that the storm was well-sampled by satellite imagery in a region of poor radar coverage (h/t to @DanLindsey77). For additional details on this case, see the VISIT Meteorological Interpretation Blog.

GOES-14 Visible (0.62 µm) images, with surface reports and SPC storm reports of hail (yellow) and wind (cyan) [click to play MP4 animation]

A 3-panel comparison of Visible images from GOES-15 and GOES-13 (available at the routine 15-30 minute interval) and GOES-14 (available at 1-minute intervals) is shown below.

GOES-13 (left), GOES-14 (center) and GOES-13 (right) 0.62 um Visible images [click to play MP4 animation]

During the early afternoon hours, the GOES-15 (GOES-West) satellite performed a “North/South Station Keeping maneuver”, during which there was no imaging between 1700-1900 UTC. To help cover for this outage, the GOES-13 (GOES-East) satellite was paced into Full Disk scan mode, which provided only 1 image every 30 minutes. During this time period, the 1-minute imagery from GOES-14 (shown below) was essential to monitor such features as a wildfire burning southeast of Ely, Nevada (station identifier KELY). Two apparent flare-ups of the fire were seen in the areal coverage of the hottest pixels (red) on GOES-14 Shortwave Infrared (3.9 µm) images at 1805 UTC and 1807 UTC, which were not captured by the 30-minute GOES-13 imagery. In fact, the 1745 UTC GOES-13 Shortwave Infrared image suggested that there was a brief reduction in the intensity of the fire (indicated by a lack of red pixels), which was not the case according to the 1-minute GOES-14 imagery.

GOES-15 (left panels), GOES-14 (center panels) and GOES-13 (right panels) 0.62 m Visible and 3.9 µm Shortwave Infrared images [click to play animation]

GOES-15 (left panels), GOES-14 (center panels) and GOES-13 (right panels) 0.62 m Visible (top) and 3.9 µm Shortwave Infrared (bottom) images [click to play animation]

Categories: Fire detection, GOES-13, GOES-14, GOES-15, GOES-R, Severe convection

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GOES-14 is operating in SRSO-R Mode