Sentinel-1A overflew the Samoan Islands on 4 September — as it does every 12 days — and the Normalized Radar Cross Section data (as at this website) was used to create wind data at very high spatial resolution. Sentinel-1A derived wind data can also be viewed at this NOAA/STAR website that has links... Read More
Overlapping 1-minute Mesoscale Domain Sectors provided 30-second GOES-16 (GOES-East) “Red” Visible (0.64 µm) and “Clean” Infrared Window (10.3 µm) images (with/without an overlay of GLM Flash Extent Density) (above) — which included 15-minute plots of METAR surface reports and hourly plots of Fixed Buoy reports as Category 3 Hurricane Idalia made landfall along the Big Bend coat... Read More
As noted in this blog post, Radar Constellation Mission (RCM1) Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) wind estimates were available over Idalia just before landfall on 30 August 2023, as shown above. RCM1 sampled the hurricane 12 hours before landfall, as well, (All SAR overpasses for Idalia are available online here) Peak winds are... Read More
Deadly fires on the island of Maui occurred in an environment favorable to fire development: dry and windy. What kind of satellite data could be used to assess those conditions? Sentinel-1A overflew the western Hawai’ian islands near sunset on 8 August 2023 (that is, at 0440 UTC on 9 August), as shown above. Widespread 30-knot winds... Read More
