Geo2grid software was used to create the three true-color animations below, using GOES-16 Full-Disk Level-1b Radiance data over the tropical Atlantic. ABI gives a vivid representation of the cloud patterns associated with a tropical wave developing (near 35^oW on 27 June, near 40^oW on 28 June, and approaching 50^oW on 29 June). The storm was declared a tropical depression at 2100 UTC on 28 June and was hurricane Beryl starting at 2100 UTC on 29 June (The archive of NHC advisories is here).

The geo2grid commands to create the GOES imagery are shown below. Three different domains are chosen, then the geo2grid commands to create true color imagery (-p true_color) on the defined grids (ATLTROP1, ATLTROP2 and ATLTROP3) are created, and coastlines and latitude/longitude lines are added. Image Magick was then used to annotate the imagery and create the animation.

./p2g_grid_helper.sh ATLTROP1 -30.0 8.0 2000 -2000 1760 760 > ATLTROP1.yaml
./p2g_grid_helper.sh ATLTROP2 -45.0 8.0 2000 -2000 1760 760 > ATLTROP2.yaml
./p2g_grid_helper.sh ATLTROP3 -50.0 10.0 2000 -2000 1760 760 > ATLTROP3.yaml
for k in 1000 1010 1020 1030 1040 1050 1100 1110 1120 1130 1140 1150 1200 1210 1220 1230 1240 1250 1300 1310 1320 1330 1340 1350 1400 1410 1420 1430 1440 1450 1500 1510 1520 1530 1540 1550 1600 1610 1620 1630 1640 1650 1700 1710 1720 1730 1740 1750 1800 1810 1820 1830 1840 1850 1900
do
./geo2grid.sh -r abi_l1b -w geotiff -p true_color -g ATLTROP1 --grid-configs ATLTROP1.yaml -f /path_to_abi_data/abi/L1b/RadF/*s2024179$k*
./geo2grid.sh -r abi_l1b -w geotiff -p true_color -g ATLTROP2 --grid-configs ATLTROP2.yaml -f /path_to_abi_data/abi/L1b/RadF/*s2024180$k*
./geo2grid.sh -r abi_l1b -w geotiff -p true_color -g ATLTROP3 --grid-configs ATLTROP3.yaml -f /path_to_abi_data/abi/L1b/RadF/*s2024181$k*
done
./add_coastlines.sh --add-coastlines --add-grid --grid-D 5.0 5.0 --grid-d 5.0 5.0 --grid-text-size 12 *ATLTROP1*.tif
./add_coastlines.sh --add-coastlines --add-grid --grid-D 5.0 5.0 --grid-d 5.0 5.0 --grid-text-size 12 *ATLTROP2*.tif
./add_coastlines.sh --add-coastlines --add-grid --grid-D 5.0 5.0 --grid-d 5.0 5.0 --grid-text-size 12 *ATLTROP3*.tif

---

GOES-16 and ABI give useful information about the clouds but the structures underneath the clouds — rain bands and moisture distributions — are vital for a complete understanding of how the atmosphere is behaving, especially for cases of developing tropical systems. JAXA’s GCOM-W1 satellite carries the AMSR-2 instrument that observes energy in the microwave part of the electromagnetic spectrum, and the data are available for download. This document below will walk you through the download procedure.

Once the data are available and downloaded to your system, use Polar2Grid to create imagery. For this case, I’ve chosen data swaths from June 27 (1453 UTC), June 28 (1536 UTC) and June 29 (1619 UTC). In this case we are focused on 89 GHz information; in the tropics, these data give information about deep convection because 89 GHz energy is strongly scattered by ice crystals as are found in deep convection. The polar2grid commands used to create imagery and to add a color enhancement that comes with polar2grid are listed below. Note that the grid definitions created for geo2grid, above, can be used for polar2grid. This makes it easy to overlay polar imagery on top of geo imagery, as shown below. A subsequent call to add_coastlines adds coastlines and latitude/longitude lines and a colorbar.

./polar2grid.sh -r amsr2_l1b -w geotiff -p btemp_89.0ah -g ATLTROP1 --grid-configs ./ATLTROP1.yaml -f ./AMSR2Data/GW1AM2_202406271453_085A_L1SGBTBR_2220220.h5

./polar2grid.sh -r amsr2_l1b -w geotiff -p btemp_89.0ah -g ATLTROP2 --grid-configs ./ATLTROP2.yaml -f ./AMSR2Data/GW1AM2_202406281536_092A_L1SGBTBR_2220220.h5

./polar2grid.sh -r amsr2_l1b -w geotiff -p btemp_89.0ah -g ATLTROP3 --grid-configs ./ATLTROP3.yaml -f ./AMSR2Data/GW1AM2_202406291619_099A_L1SGBTBR_2220220.h5

./add_colormap.sh ../colormaps/amsr2_89h.cmap gcom-w1_amsr2_btemp_89.0ah_20240629_161900_ATLTROP3.tif 
./add_colormap.sh ../colormaps/amsr2_89h.cmap gcom-w1_amsr2_btemp_89.0ah_20240628_153600_ATLTROP2.tif
./add_colormap.sh ../colormaps/amsr2_89h.cmap gcom-w1_amsr2_btemp_89.0ah_20240627_145300_ATLTROP1.tif

On 27 June, the daytime AMSR-2 overpass just missed (as sometimes happens!) the developing system, but there is information over the eastern 1/3rd of the tropical wave, and very little organization is present. One day later, on the 28th, the storm is sampled quite well, and cold cloud tops are apparent, but spiral banding is not. But the 29th, pronounced spiral banding is present and an eye is forming. (Click here to view the AMSR-2 imagery along at 0358 and 1619 UTC on 29 June).

---

At some time after the above post was published, the GCOM site entered a period of extended maintenance, scheduled to end in March of 2025. The pdf file below outlines how to access files. When you access the website https://gportal.jaxa.jp/gpr/, you’ll see an announcement that the website above is offline through at least March. However, JAXA has an Alternate Service for each satellite, including GCOM-W1. Once GCOM-W1 is selected, click on the G-Portal Repo, then standard, then GCOM-W1, and AMSR2, and L1b, then 2, then find the correct year/month combination. The month directory contains all that data available in that month, and it’s left to the user to determine the times needed. The SSEC/CIMSS Polar Orbit Track website is useful in that regard, as you can find the times when a Polar Orbiter satellite passed a particular point. That helps you download the correct files. In this case for Guam, the file names are GW1AM2_202411110314_205A_L1SGBTBR_2220220.h5 and GW1AM2_202411111536_100D_L1SGBTBR_2220220.h5 and Polar2Grid can create imagery from those files. Those are shown below.

View only this post Read Less

Geosphere Night Microphysics RGB imagery on 11 July 2024, below, shows a signal developing over (what was eventually called) the Cow Valley fire in rural eastern Oregon. The new fire developed just north of the Bonita Springs fire and to the west of the Huntington Mutual Aid fire. A consistent signal is apparent by 1100 UTC. According to the National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC), the fire was first reported at 1310 UTC, two hours later.

GOES-18 imagery from the Geosphere site, below, shows the growth of the smoke pall from the fire. In addition, the bright white reflectance within the smoke suggests occasional development of pyrocumulus clouds.

---

The image below, from the Watch Duty app, shows the fire perimeter on the evening of 11 July, and also two adjacent fires (Bonita Road to the southwest and Huntington Mutual Aid to the east, both of which can be viewed in the satellite imagery above; Bonita Road is also apparent in imagery below)

The initial Next Generation Fire System (NGFS) detection of this event was at 1111 UTC on 11 July, as shown below. This animation shows how a signal flickered in the area for about 30 minutes before the fire pixels were identified by the NGFS.

Once fire pixels have been identified, it is possible (by clicking on a pixel) to probe, as shown below, to determine what kind of fuel is available, and to determine how much urban area is present. The pixels are mostly vegetation, and do not include a Wilderness-Urban interface (WUI).

NUCAPS profiles, in this case from Metop-C, shown below, give information that might help a Incident Meteorologist. In particular, near-dry adiabatic lapse rates in the mid-troposphere might help anticipate the pyrocumulus behavior observed, using either the gridded NUCAPS shown just below, or the individual profiles shown beneath that.

As of 18z on 12 July, this fire has closed US Route 26 in eastern Oregon, from milepost 254 to 231. Forecasts for this area come from the NWS forecast office in Pendleton. The CIMSS Next Generation Fire System website is here. A more recent fire perimeter mapping, below, from the Watch Duty App, valid around 20 UTC on 12 July, shows the significant expansion of the fire.

View only this post Read Less

Oregon has seen triple-digit (^o Fahrenheit) heat in early July 2024. (Here are records for 9 July) The animation below shows GOES-18 Land Surface Temperatures on 9 July. This hourly level-2 product is created in clear skies. It shows warmest values between 2100 and 2200 UTC on 9 July 2024. Land Surface Temperature imagery is available online at this NOAA website.

GOES-18 Band 7 imagery, below, also presented hourly instead of at its normal 5-minute cadence for the GOES-18 PACUS domain, shows a similar evolution of temperatures. The surface temperatures become just as warm as two fires, one in northern California (the Shelley Fire) and one east of Medford (the Salt Creek Fire).

Relief from the heat over western Oregon is shown in the gridded NUCAPS 850-mb temperature field shown below. In contrast to the values around 20^oC (in yellow) over eastern Oregon at 0530 UTC on 10 July, values closer to 10^oC (in cyan) are over the Pacific Ocean. That cooler airmass will help to temper the heat over western Oregon, but heat on will continue in eastern Oregon.

---

The National Weather Service Offices in Portland, Medford and Pendleton have more information on this event.

View only this post Read Less

The above wiki image is credited to : “Mark Wade 2003 (text) NASA/GSFC/METI/ERSDAC/JAROS, and U.S./Japan ASTER Science Team 2006-09-01 (photo) Borrow-188 and Soumya-8974 (compilation) – This file was derived from: CCAFS.jpg.

All the GOES launches have been from Cape Canaveral (FL), but the launch pads used have varied over the decades. Included in the table below are select other historical rocket launches.

Rocket	Launch Date	Pad	Comments/Earth-viewing Instruments
Explorer I	31 January 1958	26	First American Satellite
Explorer 7X	16 July 1959	5	Launch failure – Carried Heat Budget sensor
Explorer 7	13 October 1959	5	First monitoring Earth (Heat Budget)
ATS-1	7 December 1966	12	Spin-Scan Cloud Camera
ATS-3	5 November 1967	12	Multi-color Spin-Scan Cloud Camera
SMS-A (SMS-1)	17 May 1974	17	VISSR
SMS-B (SMS-2)	6 February 1975	17
GOES-A (GOES-1)	16 October 1975	17A	Also known as SMS-C
GOES-B (GOES-2)	16 June 1977	17B
GOES-C (GOES-3)	16 June 1978	17B
GOES-D (GOES-4)	9 September 1980	17A	VAS
GOES-E (GOES-5)	22 May 1981	17A
GOES-F (GOES-6)	28 April 1983	17A
GOES-G (-)	3 May 1986		Launch failure
GOES-H (GOES-7)	26 February 1987	17A
GOES-I (GOES-8)	13 April 1994	36B	Imager and Sounder
GOES-J (GOES-9)	23 May 1995	36B
GOES-K (GOES-10)	25 April 1997	36B
GOES-L (GOES-11)	3 May 2000	36A
GOES-M (GOES-12)	23 July 2001	36A
GOES-N (GOES-13)	24 May 2006	37B
GOES-O (GOES-14)	27 June 2009	37B
GOES-P (GOES-15)	4 March 2010	37B
GOES-Q (-)	–		Spacecraft option not exercised
GOES-R (GOES-16)	19 November 2016	41	ABI, GLM, SUVI, etc.
GOES-S (GOES-17)	1 March 2018	41
GOES-T (GOES-18)	1 March 2022	41
GOES-U (GOES-19)	25 June 2024	39A
GeoXO	TBD	TBD	TBD

The instrument spectral response functions (SRF) for many of the list GEOs are posted on this UW/CIMSS calibration site.

H/T

Thanks to all who make the satellite imagery possible, NOAA, NASA, vendors, contractors and Cooperative Institute folks. T. Schmit works for NOAA/NESDIS/STAR and is stationed in Madison, WI.

View only this post Read Less