The Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies (CIMSS) acquires data directly from polar-orbiting satellites such as Suomi-NPP and NOAA-20 through Direct Broadcast antennae that are on the UW-Madison Campus. Community Satellite Processing Package (CSPP) software takes the Direct Broadcast signal and creates data files and, with Polar2Grid, imagery that are easily accessible at this ftp site where users can find directories for... Read More

Tropical Storm Laura’s path near/over the Greater Antilles has affected her strength, and the relative lack of organization means that night-time satellite identification of the center is a challenge. Consider the animation above. Northerly shear (analysis from this site) has shifted the coldest cloud tops to the south of the circulation center... Read More

Tropical Storm Marco over the northwest Caribbean Sea, shown above in a toggle of GOES-16 ABI Clean window imagery (10.3 µm) and a NUCAPS diagnosis of 850-500mb lapse rates, is over very warm waters and in a region of favorably low diagnosed vertical wind shear. (Wind shear is from this website, (direct link to shear); the product is described here)  An inhibiting feature in strengthening, as noted in the National Hurricane Center discussion, is stable... Read More

1-minute Mesoscale Domain Sector GOES-16 (GOES-East) “Red” Visible (0.64 µm) images (above) showed the eastward progression of a Mesoscale Convective System (MCS) that produced a long swath of damaging winds (SPC Storm Reports) or derecho from eastern Nebraska to Indiana on 10 August 2020. The highest measured wind gust was 112 mph in eastern Iowa at 1755 UTC.The corresponding... Read More