Satellite data are used routinely to monitor Volcanoes for eruptions that can be potential aviation hazards. The Himawari-8 false-color image, above, derived from Himawari-8 AHI data, includes a volcanic plume that, even without the image annotation, is easy to detect. Consider the same scene, below, derived from MTSAT-2 imagery. The... Read More

Himawari-8, launched by the Japanese Meteorological Agency in October 2014, is in its check-out phase with the satellite located near 0º North 140º East. The animation above shows the three water vapor bands (Bands 8, 9 and 10 centered at 6.2 µm, 6.9 µm and 7.3 µm, respectively) from the AHI on Himawari-8.The... Read More