As scheduled, GOES-15 has sent its last image (More information from NOAA’s Office of Satellite and Product Operations OSPO)  .  The final image sent was a 1552 UTC Southern Hemisphere sector, shown above (courtesy Tim Schmit).   (One of the final Sounder images is here). However, the satellite is not gone for good:  it is scheduled to transmit data again in August of this year, when the GOES-17 Loop Heat Pipe issue again renders GOES-West imagery incomplete during the eastern/central Pacific Ocean Hurricane season.  (This website shows more specifics)

GOES-15 became the operational GOES-West satellite — replacing GOES-11 — back in early December 2011 (Blog Post;  GOES-11 replaced GOES-10 as GOES-West back in 2006 (Blog Post)).  GOES-15 ceased being the operational GOES-West when GOES-17 became operational (February 12, 2017), but GOES-15 has continued to transmit data to supplement imagery lost because of the GOES-17’s Loop Heat Pipe.

Added: The Science Test for GOES-15 is available here.

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EUMETSAT Meteosat-11 Water Vapor (6.25 µm) images (above) showed the large field of strong surface winds associated with Storm Jorge as it approached the British Isles on 29 February – 01 March 2020. Peak wind gusts of 70 knots were recorded in Ireland.

Surface analyses from the Ocean Prediction Center (below) indicated that the Hurricane Force occluded low reached a minimum pressure of 952 hPa at 06 UTC on 29 February.

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GOES-16 (GOES-East) Visible (0.64 µm) images (above) revealed a cloud arc which marked the leading edge of a Tehuano wind event — air behind a cold front plunged southward across the Gulf of Mexico during the previous day, crossed the mountains of Mexico through Chivela Pass (topography) , and emerged over the Pacific Ocean on 27 February 2020. Within the western portion of the gap wind flow, ASCAT winds speeds were as high as 32 knots at 1540 UTC — but closer to the coast the Ocean Prediction Center was initially forecasting an area of Storm Force winds (downgraded to Gale Force winds later in the day).

On a GOES-16 Visible image with plots of available NOAA-20 NUCAPS profiles (below), the location of one profile immediately offshore (Point 1) and another just ahead of the Tehauno cloud arc (Point 2) are highlighted.

A toggle between the NUCAPS profile immediately offshore (Point 1, at 15.39 N latitude 94.55 W longitude) and the profile just ahead of the Tehauno cloud arc (Point 2, at 7.29 N latitude 93.95 W longitude) is show below. Note that Total Precipitable Water values were 1.78 inches ahead of the cloud arc, compared to 1.16 inches immediately off the coast of Mexico where the dry gap winds were entering the Gulf of Tehuantepec.

In a comparison of Visible images from GOES-17 (GOES-West) and GOES-16 (GOES-East), haziness in the Gulf of Tehuantepec (best seen with GOES-16, due to a larger forward scattering angle) highlighted blowing dust that was being carried offshore by the strong gap winds.

GOES-16 True Color Red-Green-Blue (RGB) images created using Geo2Grid (below) provided a clearer view of the blowing dust plumes in the Gulf of Tehuantepec.

VIIRS True Color RGB images from Suomi NPP and NOAA-20 as viewed using RealEarth are shown below.

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Gridded NUCAPS fields include 850-mb dewpoint temperature fields, and this blog post compares the NUCAPS fields to model fields, and this is part of an ongoing series of blog posts on these horizontal fields.  The imagery above compares NUCAPS fields at 850 mb with NAM40 and RAP40 data over the southeastern part of the United States.  Very dry air is indicated over the western Atlantic Ocean north and west of the Gulf Stream.  There is generally good agreement between the NUCAPS and model fields. Model fields appear dryer (or NUCAPS fields are more moist).  Model fields show a pronounced gradient over the upper midwest that, at this scan time, were too far west to be viewed by NUCAPS.  (Click here to view the NUCAPS points — green, yellow and red — for this time, to show something about the data that has been input into the gridded fields).

However, the following pass from NOAA-20 (click here to view NOAA-20 orbit paths) included midwestern data.  Again, the general good agreement is obvious, especially with regard to the placement of the gradient. Is the atmosphere as dry as the model suggests at 850 mb? That’s a hard question to answer given 1200 UTC Soundings at Omaha, Minneapolis/Chanhassen, and Green Bay.  Note that NAM12 and RAP13 data are being shown in this example;  they gave mostly the same answer as NAM40/RAP40 used above.

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