NOAA‘s GOES-16 and GOES-17 ABI observed the Firefly Aerospace’s maiden flight from Vandenberg Air Force base. GOES-16 ABI 16-panel captured the before and after the anomaly (explosion approximately 2.5 minutes after launch). Loop: (animated gif) (mp4).The parallax effect is very evident comparing GOES-17 and GOES-16 ABI views. Loop: (animated gif) (mp4). What is shown is a multi-spectral “rocket plume” RGB. More about... Read More

GOES-17 (GOES-West) True Color RGB images created using Geo2Grid (above) showed the diurnal variation of smoke from the Dixie Fire and the Caldor Fire in Northern California on 30 August 2021. Early in the day, smoke from the previous day of fire activity that had settled into valleys was apparent — however, as daytime heating continued this valley smoke was ventilated... Read More

Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) winds over the northwest Pacific, above, derived from Radar Constellation Mission (RCM) Satellite #2, shows a narrow ribbon of strong winds (>30 knots) stretching from 50 N, 138 W towards 53 N, 140 W. What kind of cloud imagery is associated with this wind feature?Near-sunrise visible... Read More

The Caldor Fire (east of Sacramento, California) exhibited unprecedented growth on 17 August 2021 — increasing from 3600 acres burned in the morning to 30,000 acres that evening, with 0% containment — and Shortwave Infrared (3.9 µm) images from 1-minute GOES-17, 15 to 30-minute GOES-15, 15 to 30-minute GOES-14 and 5-minute GOES-16 (above)... Read More