Listen up, weather nerds! The amount of state-of-the-art satellite imagery available for consumption has DOUBLED! The era of GOES-17 is here.
Yesterday, Kevin Micke, a web developer for the Cooperative Institute for Research in the Atmosphere (CIRA), tweeted that the first images of GOES-17 were up. Almost immediately, meteorologists and weather weenies alike were geeking out (me included):
🚨 GOES-17 IMAGERY IS HERE 🚨
Feast your eyes >> https://t.co/KlC6lQ7FHv pic.twitter.com/x0yi6Nshcy
— Dakota Smith (@weatherdak) August 28, 2018
Of all the cool #GOES17 imagery I saw today, my favorite remains the first animation of the day (which I just made longer): #Denali at the extreme limb of the satellite view. https://t.co/EbX8vdTeqN Sure, my 2 tour flights from Talkeetna offered a closer view, but still… #AKwx pic.twitter.com/dbEbRO6Rzb
— Scott Bachmeier (@CIMSS_Satellite) August 29, 2018
Recent @UWCIMSS Satellite Blog with preliminary non-operational #GOES17 ABI. @NOAASatellites https://t.co/44rhgFXzZe Image used the GRB steam and the https://t.co/eNSddWQVxE software. pic.twitter.com/QyE0b9AxE5
— Tim Schmit (@GOESguy) August 28, 2018
While the new data is freaking amazing, GOES-17 has faced some set backs due to hardware malfunctions. Dan Lindsey, a research meteorologist at CIRA, brought us a few updates at the recent National Weather Association Annual Meeting.
According to Lindsey, GOES-17’s heat loop pipes, are not functioning properly which will require engineers to get a little creative to maximize GOES-17’s data output. The satellite will rotate during each equinox to cut down on the solar load experienced on the satellite’s Advanced Baseline Imager instrument.
Lindsey: Info about what is currently wrong and a current assessment on what is or is not going to be working. #NWAS18 #GOES17 pic.twitter.com/hQYpU61jeY
— National Weather Association (@nwas) August 27, 2018
Without this rotation, the ABI instrument would be too warm for an extended period of time, causing increased outages in several data products. Longer wavelength products including infrared imagery is expected to be most affected. To compensate for potential data losses, the current GOES-West (GOES-15) will run in tandem with GOES-17.
Don’t worry too much, two more satellites (GOES-T and GOES-U) are planned for orbit that will provide identically beautiful and high resolution imagery. Naturally, scientists are learning from GOES-17’s pitfall in hopes to avoid any further data losses on future satellites.
For now, go get your fix of satellite imagery over on CIRA’s Slider. Trust me, you won’t regret it.
(Note: GOES-17 data is preliminary, non-operational, and insanely beautiful)
Written by: Dakota Smith.