Friday, August 17, 2012

GOES-14 Satellite In "Super Rapid Scan" Mode for Several Weeks...


Meteorologists and weather enthusiasts are in for a treat over the next several weeks as one of the GOES weather satellites (GOES 14 to be exact) has been placed in "Super-Rapid Scan Mode".  This means that satellite pictures will be taken once every minute, compared to the 15-30 minute scans that we are normally presented with.

The trick is, the special scan's won't cover the entire nation or the entire Northern Hemisphere.  Various "sectors" will be chosen for this special scanning mode based on ongoing and forecast weather conditions, etc.

For example, today the focus is on the Southeast, and you can see a beautiful one-minute frequency visible satellite loop (one of the frames is shown above) by going to this link.

The schedule for tomorrow showss that the super rapid scan imagery will be focused on now Tropical Storm Helene (shown as "Tropical Invest" on the schedule).  It will be awesome watching a tropical system with 1 minute satellite intervals (albeit so close to land).

The Super Rapid Scan Mode is scheduled to continue on "select days" through October 31st.  For more information see this post on the CIMMS blog page.


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