1. TIROS-1: The First Weather Satellite

3. Geostationary Orbit

4. GOES Weather Satellite

5. GOES Weather Satellite

10. Five geostationary satellites

11. Polar Orbit Earth rotates under satellite.
Satellite sees a narrow swath, about 2000 km wide
Roughly twice a day coverage

12. NOAA Polar Orbiter

15. Visible Imagery (.5-.7 microns)

17. Infrared Imagery (typically 10-12 microns)

20. IR Enhancement
Steep Linear Enhancement: Going through a wide range of shades over a limited temperature range
Contouring: Discontinuous change of shading at certain temperatures to indicate specific values
Color enhancement: Using color to highlight certain temperature values.

24. MB Enhancement

27. Fog Product Based on Difference Between IR and SW IR

31. Water Vapor Channel

34. Products from the GOES Sounder

35. 19 Channels

41. GPS Sounding A constellation of GPS satellites orbit the earth.
By measuring the delay in time as the GPS signal is bent by the earth’s atmosphere, one can acquire density information that can be used to create temperature and humidity soundings.
Can do this with fixed receivers on earth or with receivers on satellites--the COSMIC project.

44. Cosmic Soundings

45. The Golden Rule of Satellite Interpretation
It is the relative motions of air parcels with respect to each other that is best related to cloud patterns, NOT the motion WRT the earth that is explicitly shown by the wind field.

46. Thunderstorms

47. Snow L Can you see the snow pack?
Hint: The clouds move, the snow doesn’t.
Snowpack L
Valley Fog

48. Visible imagery is analyzed in terms of brightness and texture
Visible imagery is analyzed in terms of brightness and texture. Deeper, more vertically developed clouds such as these thunderstorms over the mid Atlantic region appear very bright while lower, thinner clouds are grayer. Also note the very lumpy texture to the convective cloud tops vs nearby stratified clouds along the PA/MD border.

49. Note the differences in land vs water temperatures in this nighttime IR image. The dark specks are lakes, large rivers and reservoirs. The Great Lakes are also contrasted well against the adjacent cold land mass.

50. Note sharp, dendritic pattern to this river fog over the MS and lower WI river valleys. Also note the long lived contrails over eastern WI.

51. A polar orbiter view of valley fog in the Appalachians
A polar orbiter view of valley fog in the Appalachians. Note the dendritic pattern produced by topography.

52. With unstable, cumuliform clouds, wind flow will be parallel to cloud “streets”.

54. Polar air flowing across the Great Lakes often produces lake effect clouds and snow squalls. What was the direction of wind flow over the upper Midwest on this day?

55. Look at the overshooting tops boiling up through the anvil canopy of this severe thunderstorm complex. Note also the wavelets in the anvil downstream over AR and MO. These are a good example of gravity waves and are known to be associated with severe turbulence.

57. A good example of mountain wave turbulence (MWT) as indicated by satellite imagery.

58. Rope Clouds-Cold fronts