NOAA -- The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
NOAA National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service (NESDIS)

News & Articles Archive

  1. Home
  2. News & Articles Archive
Clouds or Snow? Here Are a Few Ways to Tell the Difference
At first glance, satellite imagery of the Earth can make it look like a giant blue and green marble with swirls of white. For many of us, that makes it hard to imagine how researchers and forecasters are able to determine whether those swirls of white are clouds or snow. However, being able to pinpoint snow cover is important because it can be used for search and rescue missions, water supply resource monitoring and management, as well as short-term forecasting. 
NOAA Targets January 2019 to Declare GOES-17 Operational
A recent software error on the GOES-17 Advanced Baseline Imager will delay the satellite from becoming operational until early 2019.
Image of the arctic sea
With Shrinking Arctic Sea Ice Comes Heightened National Security Concerns
While Arctic sea ice continues to shrink, human activity in the region is only growing. Ice extent, which is monitored by the U.S. National Ice Center (USNIC), often determines what types of activities are pursued in the region. Shrinking ice cover is making the Arctic more accessible to various countries, commercial entities and researchers, among others.
NOAA GOES-17 satellite view of the Hawaiian Islands on Nov. 13, 2018
NOAA GOES-17 Shares First Images of Alaska, Hawaii and the Pacific
The GOES-17 Advanced Baseline Imager (ABI) has sent its first images from the satellite's new vantage point over the Pacific Ocean.
Photo of an image of a snow squall from space
Here’s How Satellite Data Helps Forecasters Issue Snow Squall Alerts
If you have a smartphone, you’ve likely received a severe weather alert warning of an impending flash flooding event, a tornado or a dangerous thunderstorm, and that’s in part thanks to information provided by the National Weather Service (NWS). Up until this year, however, the NWS didn’t have an alert system in place for a form of severe winter weather that is known to cause multi-car pile ups: snow squalls. 
An artist's rendering of the Metop satellite in polar orbit.
Metop-C, NOAA’s Polar Partner Satellite, Is Launching Soon. Here’s Why It Matters.
A new European weather satellite launching in November 2018 will provide the next generation of data we depend on to predict Earth’s weather and climate.
NOAA's DSCOVR satellite orbits one million miles from Earth.
NOAA Moves One Step Closer to Its Next Space Weather Satellite Mission
Every day we rely on advanced technology – whether it's in the form of our cell phones, a GPS app or just having the lights turn on at the flip of a switch. But all of these conveniences are vulnerable to a serious threat from space: our sun. 
GOES-17 is moving to its operational position at 137.2 degrees west longitude.
Get Ready to Drift: GOES-17 Begins Move to Its New Operational Position
NOAA’s GOES-17 satellite is getting ready to move to its new vantage point at 137.2 degrees west longitude, allowing us to see the weather at high resolution in the western U.S., Alaska and Hawaii, and much of the Pacific Ocean.
Image credit: NOAA/NESDIS
We May Be Past The Peak, But Hurricane Season Is Far From Over
Over the course of a month, we’ve seen tropical cyclone activity in the Atlantic basin heat up quite a bit – most notably with the landfall of Hurricane Florence, which dumped historic amounts of rain on portions of the Carolinas. Although the Atlantic hurricane season runs from June 1 to November 30, on average, early September marks the peak. From 1975 to 2017, there have been an average of 3.1 Atlantic hurricanes per year in September. However, the September of 1998 still holds the record with six hurricanes.