GOES Mesoscale Requests for April 8th
While the view of the Sun from the ground may, or may not be, affected by clouds during the eclipse on April 8th, the view of the Moon’s shadow on the Earth will be viewed from NOAA‘s GOES ABI. There will be imagery every 10 min from the Full Disk sectors, and 5 min from the Contiguous U.S. (CONUS) sector. There will be two Mesoscale sectors from GOES-16 ABI, although it’s not yet certain where they will be located on the Earth that day. Most likely “M1” will “follow” the shadow, while “M2” will move around to monitor any possible severe weather. There are many sites with imagery from the Mesoscale sectors, including NOAA/NESDIS/STAR (M1) and UW/SSEC geosphere (M1) and CIRA’s slider (M1).
Research Request
There has been a research request to have the Mesoscale sectors generally ‘follow’ the shadow. The idea is that the center point of the sector would change every 5 min. This would be similar to the Mesoscale scan strategy used during August 2017 eclipse (see this animation from UW/CIMSS), where the centers changed every 10 min. The second meso (M2) will be moved to monitor possible severe weather. More on the recent/planned meso locations. Of course any operational request will preempt this research request.
These ‘simulated’ mesos (M1) are cookie-cut from the Full Disk sector. It’s possible that M1 center will be updated every 5 minutes. There is a google form for researchers to request special sectors (for events such as rocket launches, etc.). The request link is also on this page of many GOES related links.
H/T
Thanks to those investigating if these meso’s can be generated on April 8th, including the NOAA NESDIS User Services team. Fun fact, this research request was initially submitted on May 3, 2023. Thanks also for the Eclipse Predictions by Fred Espenak, NASA’s GSFC. McIDAS-X was used for image generation. Thanks to the satellite operators, SDM, PRO, SAB and the NWS.