McIDAS-V images of Himawari-8 AHI 0.64 µm visible channel data (above; click image to play animation; images courtesy of William Straka, SSEC) showed the evolution of Category 2 Typhoon Maysak over the West Pacific Ocean on 30 March 2015. A number of large convective bursts can be seen surrounding the... Read More

The AHI Instrument on Himawari-8 has 16 different channels sensing the atmosphere. The instrument is still in Post-Launch Testing, a period when instrument performance is monitored and adjusted. Extratropical cyclogenesis that occurred east of Japan on 30 March was captured by the different channels.The 0.64 µm visible imagery, above, is... Read More

Infrared imagery from Himawari-8 has a nominal resolution of two km (at the sub-satellite point), but a visible channel has a nominal resolution of 0.5 km which can provide imagery with great detail. In the example above, the visible imagery captures the eruption, beginning around 2210 UTC on 25 March... Read More

Full-resolution animations of Himawari-8 6.2 µm water vapor imagery suggest what a gamechanger Himawari-8 data is, and what a gamechanger GOES-R data will be. Full-disk imagery at every 10 minutes, and at 2-km resolution, means atmospheric motion vectors computed from water vapor imagery (or other channels, such as the 10.35... Read More