On 15 December 2015 NOAA/NESDIS conducted a test of the new GOES-15 (GOES-West) Rapid Scan Operations (RSO) sector for coverage of the American Samoa region (SSD message). GOES-15 Visible (0.63 µm, 1-km resolution) images during the test period between 1711 and 1957 UTC are shown above, with plots of surface observations for... Read More

Japanese Meteorological Agency Himawari-8 Water Vapor (6.9 µm, 2-km resolution) images (above) showed the rapid intensification of a hurricane-force extratropical cyclone over the North Pacific Ocean and Bering Sea during the 12 December – 13 December 2015 period. The 6.9 µm is one of 3 water vapor spectral bands on the Himawari... Read More

Persistent southerly to westerly flow over the Pacific Northwest has allowed a series of disturbances to produce rain each day so far this month in Seattle, including a record rainfall on December 7th (a day that was particularly dark, given the extensive clouds and the low sun angle: Link). (Update: Seattle also had record daily rainfall on... Read More

Now that Himawari-8 is their operational geostationary satellite, the Japanese Meteorological Agency (JMA) decommissioned MTSAT-1R (which was relaying the direct broadcast of MTSAT-2 imagery) as of 0630 UTC on 04 December 2015. A comparison of the final 5 hours of available MTSAT-2 6.75 µm water vapor channel images with the... Read More