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Best of GOES-14's SRSO-R Imagery

December 16, 2016

While collecting SRSO-R imagery in preparation for GOES-16's advanced capabilities, GOES-14 has seen some incredible things!

 

Image of the US

As NOAA's revolutionary new satellite, GOES-16 , comes to life on orbit and prepares for its mission, forecasters and researchers on the ground are preparing to take advantage of the massive increase in data flow and enhanced images the satellite will provide.

You can't prepare for this sort of thing overnight, however. In fact, scientists have been using GOES-14, a current geostationary satellite serving as an on-orbit back-up, to preform simulated "test runs" since 2012!

At various times throughout the year, the satellite is placed into a rapid scan mode, known as Super Rapid Scan Operations for GOES-R or SRSO-R, and captures an image almost every minute of of rapidly changing phenomena, such as a fire or severe storm. This simulates the temporal aspect of future real-time-storm-tracking and imagery of GOES-16 and is used to prepare forecasters for the type of rapid scan imagery they will see with the satellite's new imager.

While collected SRSO-R imagery, GOES-14 has seen some incredible things! This "Best of GOES-14" video is a compilation of the satellite's most impressive SRSO-R animations.

Although this imagery is impressive, NOAA's GOES-16 will be able to take images of weather at twice this speed with even greater detail. This allows the satellite to show features in a storm's development that could otherwise be missed.

 

 

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To learn more about SRSO-R imagery and GOES-16 preparations, check out this interview with NOAA Advanced Satellite Products Branch (ASPB) scientist Tim Schmit.

The video shows the following events in this order:

  • Hurricane Sandy (October 2012), visible
  • Convection over WI (August 2013), visible
  • CO Supercell (May 2014), visible and infrared
  • Las Vegas Flashflood and Cirrus (August 2014), visible
  • Meso-vortex (August 2014), visible and water vapor
  • Convection over TX (May 2015), visible
  • Convection over the Midwest (June 2015), visible
  • Convection over IL (June 2015), visible and infrared
  • East Coast low (February 2016), visible and water vapor
  • Great Lakes effect snow (February 2016), visible
  • Fort McMurray fires (May 2016), visible and shortwave infrared
  • CA fog and fires (August 2016), visible
  • FL convection and Tropical Invest 99L (August 2016), visible.