{"id":68220,"date":"2025-12-31T18:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-12-31T18:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/?p=68220"},"modified":"2026-01-02T19:58:15","modified_gmt":"2026-01-02T19:58:15","slug":"there-goes-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/archives\/68220","title":{"rendered":"There GOES 2025!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Continuing in the tradition of a blog post looking back on some of the most noteworthy events of the year as seen by GOES, here is a summary of 2025 CIMSS Satellite Blog posts. In previous years, a selection of several GOES ABI loops during 2022<\/a> and 2023<\/a> and 2024<\/a> showcased the diverse range of features observed, including, but not limited to, volcanic activity<\/a>, tropical cyclones<\/a>, severe convection<\/a>, fog<\/a>, smoke<\/a>, fires<\/a>, blowing dust<\/a>, flooding<\/a> and ice<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The goal here is to show a variety of phenomena and locations that NOAA<\/a>\u2018s GOES ABI<\/a> routinely monitors. Just one highlight per month (most months, sometimes it’s hard to choose just one) and we’re covering a lot of types of events, some of which were tragic, deadly, and\/or costly. Most loops generated are from the University of Wisconsin-Madison CIMSS<\/a> Satellite Blog<\/a>, and the original blog posts are linked if you’re interested in reading more on any of these cases. Imagery from GOES-16, -18, and -19 are showcased, along with the ABI<\/a>‘s three different scan sectors: Full Disk (10-min intervals), Contiguous U.S. (5-min intervals) and Mesoscale Sectors (typically 1-min intervals). The GOES-R Series<\/a> has more than an Imager instrument on it though, and we’ll include some Solar Ultraviolet Imager (SUVI<\/a>) and Geostationary Lightning Mapper (GLM<\/a>) data as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First we can celebrate 2025 with some Full Disk animations from GOES-East using the CIMSS Natural True Color RGB<\/a>. We will start with the sunset view from GOES-East, from Winter Solstice 2024 (Dec 21, 2024) to Winter Solstice 2025 (Dec 21, 2025). Winter Solstice<\/a> in the northern hemisphere is when the north pole reaches its maximum tilt away from the sun. Sunset for GOES-East (at the location on Earth directly below the satellite, roughly at the equator and 75W) is around 23 UTC. The exact time of sunset varies somewhat through the year, but we just chose the nominal 2300 UTC image for each day to make things simpler. And a handful of days are missing, because of bad data.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

GOES-East Winter Solstice 2024 to Winter Solstice 2025 satellite sunset animation (mp4, click to play).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Next is satellite noon in CIMSS Natural True Color RGB from GOES-East for all of 2025 (minus a handful of days with bad data). Noon for GOES-East is around 1700 UTC.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

GOES-East satellite noon animation for all of 2025 (mp4, click to play).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

January<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The two highlighted events for January are wildfires in\/around Los Angeles and snow across the Deep South. The LA wildfires caused damages estimated to be around $300 billion, with at least 31 deaths attributed directly to fire. There were multiple CIMSS Satellite Blog entries, not all GOES-centric, discussing this event: Palisades Fire (Jan 7)<\/a>, NGFS detections of multiple fires in\/near Los Angeles County (Jan 8)<\/a>, Day Night Band imagery of fires over California (Jan 9)<\/a>, Landsat-9 images of the Palisades Fire and Eaton Fire burn scars in Los Angeles County, California (Jan 14)<\/a>, and later in January the Hughes Fire near LA (Jan 22)<\/a>. Shown below is an animation of the first four days of the Los Angeles area wildfires<\/a> using the ABI Fire Temperature RGB, from January 7th-10th:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1-minute GOES-18 Fire Temperature RGB images, from 1810 UTC on 7th January to 2359 UTC on 10th January [click to play MP4 animation<\/strong><\/a>]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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This historic snowstorm across the Deep South<\/a> left 8 (EIGHT!) inches of snow (official measurement at the airport) in New Orleans, Louisiana.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

GOES-East mp4 animation of Upper Level Water Vapor infrared imagery (Band 8, 6.19 \u00b5m), 1826 UTC 19 January – 1331 UTC, 22 January 2025<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

February<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

February saw South Dakota\u2019s first February tornado on record<\/a> on February 24. This animation features both GOES-16 ABI and Geostationary Lightning Mapper (GLM) data.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

5-minute GOES-16 Red Visible (0.64 \u00b5m, left) and Clean Infrared Window (10.3 \u00b5m, right) images, with\/without an overlay of GLM Flash Extent Density, from 2031-2221 UTC on 24 February 2025 [click to play MP4 animation]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

March<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

A strong solar flare captured by GOES-16 SUVI<\/a> occurred on March 28th:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

GOES-16 SUVI 304 angstrom images, from 1445-1659 UTC on 28 March [click to play MP4 animation]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

April<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

GOES-19 became operational as GOES-East<\/a> on April 7:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

True-Color imagery from GOES-East, 1431-1531 UTC on 7 April 2025; GOES-16 through 1456 UTC; GOES-19 starting at 1506 UTC<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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There were several blowing dust events in April — perhaps the most impressive as seen from GOES was the blowing dust behind a cold front moving across New Mexico, Texas and Mexico<\/a> on April 19th:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

5-minute GOES-19 daytime True Color RGB + nighttime Dust RGB images, from 1801 UTC on 19 April to 0601 UTC on 20 April 2025.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

May<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Speaking of blowing dust, on May 16th, 2025 blowing dust prompted the issuance of the first Dust Storm Warning on record for the Chicago metro area<\/a>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1-minute daytime GOES-19 True Color RGB images + nighttime Dust RGB images, from 2130 UTC on 16 May to 0200 UTC on 17 May 2025.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

June<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

In recent years we have seen more interest in the media as some part of the United States sees air quality impacts from wildfire smoke coming from Canada, and 2025 was no exception. One example from June 11th was Canadian wildfire smoke over Alaska<\/a>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

10-minute GOES-18 True Color RGB images (top) and Near-Infrared \u201cCirrus\u201d (1.37 \u00b5m) images (bottom), from 1200 UTC on 11 June to 0500 UTC on 12 June 2025.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

July<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Unfortunately July 4th this year was marked with one of the deadliest flash-flooding events in US history, and the deadliest of this century. Catastrophic flash flooding event in the Hill Country of Texas responsible for at least 130 fatalities<\/a>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

5-minute GOES-19 Infrared (10.3 \u00b5m) images centered on Kerr County, Texas from 0001-1801 UTC on 04 July, with plots of Flood Advisories (green polygons), Flood Warnings (brighter\/solid green polygons) and Flash Flood Warnings (red polygons) against County outlines \u2014 along with plots of 15-minute METAR surface report.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

August<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

On August 16, 2025 Hurricane Erin became the earliest Category 5 hurricane on record in the Atlantic Ocean<\/a> as it was north of the Leeward Islands:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1-minute GOES-19 Visible and Infrared images with plots of GOES-19 GLM Flash Points, from 1000-1700 UTC on 16 August 2025.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

September<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

There was a lunar eclipse on September 7th. Not for us on Earth, just for GOES, when the moon temporarily blocked the view of the sun from both GOES-East and -West. Effects of a lunar eclipse on GOES-18\/GOES-19 SUVI imagery<\/a>:<\/p>\n\n\n

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GOES-18 SUVI Fe171 (171 \u00c5) images, from 0652-1000 UTC on 07 September [click to play MP4 animation]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

October<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

This year we celebrated the 50th Anniversary of the launch of GOES-1 on October 16th, 1975 with this special look at a GOES animation from each of all 50 states: Fifty Loops for the 50th Anniversary of GOES<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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On October 28, Hurricane Melissa made landfall on Jamaica as a devastating Category 5 hurricane<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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1-minute CIMSS True Color RGB images, from 1131-2159 UTC on 28 October 2025.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

November<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

In addition to being the 50th anniversary of the launch of GOES-1, 2025 was also the 50th anniversary of the sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald<\/a>. This is one of the most well-remembered weather-related disasters in US history, and we take a fresh look at this storm from November 10th, 1975 with modern reanalysis data and modern tools. We don’t have any GOES imagery of this storm in our possession, but we have the next best thing: Synchronous Meteorological Satellite (SMS)-2. The SMS series was an experimental series of satellites that NASA launched and operated until SMS-C became GOES-1. SMS-1, -2 and GOES-1 through -4 are all the same design.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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A portion of the SMS-2 full disk infrared image at 0615 UTC (12:15 AM CST) on November 10, 1975.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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With the two operational GOES, we can see over half the surface of the earth, from the west coast of the African continent to the east coast of Australia, and not quite to the north and south poles. American forecasters have responsibility across a large portion of that area, and to highlight that here is a case from November 20th of flash flooding in American Samoa<\/a> — where they don’t have a radar, so satellite observations are critical. (Incidentally, there were a least 4 times<\/a> in 2025 when a 1-minute Mesoscale Sector was positioned over American Samoa to monitor flash flooding.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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GOES-18 Day Convection RGB<\/a> from 16:11 to 18:01 UTC on November 20, 2025.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

December<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

For the last month of the year we will highlight two events. Both of these events have gone on longer than maybe one would want or expect. There was been a long-duration Tule fog event in the Central Valley of California<\/a> that started on November 21st and continued for over a month. Meanwhile Mt Kilauea in Hawaii<\/a> has been erupting since December 23 of last year!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

10-minute GOES-18 daytime True Color RGB and Nighttime Microphysics RGB images, from 1000 UTC on 21 November to 0000 UTC on 20 December 2025.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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5-minute GOES-18 Shortwave Infrared (3.9 \u00b5m) images, from 1601 UTC on 06 December to 0701 UTC on 07 December 2025 [click to play MP4 animation]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Thank You!<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

To close out 2025, we would like to say thank you to all of our readers! The author would like to say a special thank you to the authors of the blog posts that he borrowed imagery from today: Scott Bachmeier, Scott Lindstrom, Tim Schmit, and Tim Wagner. Thanks to all who make the GOES imagery possible, the ingest and software to display the imagery (including, but not limited to McIDAS-X<\/a>, Geo2Grid<\/a>, GeoSphere<\/a>, RealEarth<\/a> and AWIPS<\/a>). Special thanks to Dave Stettner of the UW\/CIMSS AWG Imagery Team.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Special note: Scott Lindstrom has retired from UW-Madison and we will miss him, especially here on the Blog!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Looking for more satellite blogs? Check out the Satellite Liaison Blog<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Continuing in the tradition of a blog post looking back on some of the most noteworthy events of the year as seen by GOES, here is a summary of 2025 CIMSS Satellite Blog posts. In previous years, a selection of several GOES ABI loops during 2022 and 2023 and 2024 showcased the diverse range of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":68242,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,6,13,76,74,114,159,34,41,30,45,3,149,148,2,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-68220","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-air-quality","category-fire-detection","category-fog-detection","category-glm","category-goes-16","category-goes-18","category-goes-19","category-goes-r","category-historical","category-lightning","category-redgreenblue-rgb-images","category-severe-convection","category-space-weather","category-suvi","category-tropical-cyclones","category-winter-weather"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68220","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=68220"}],"version-history":[{"count":37,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68220\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":68373,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68220\/revisions\/68373"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/68242"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68220"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68220"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68220"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}