Satellite Imagery

Satellite images and the data they provide are likely the biggest-single advance in weather forecasting. Let’s take a closer look at weather satellites.

Tim Vasquez

Friday, December 27, 2024 at 08:00 AM ET

Verified

This close-up look at the modern GOES satellite shows the key equipment packages that are on board. (NASA/NOAA)

Key Takeaways:

Modern GOES satellites provide critical, high-resolution weather data for aviation, featuring both visible and infrared imagery, and advanced multispectral products.
Pilots should leverage high-resolution visible imagery during the day for low-level details (fog, stratus) and multispectral "Night Microphysics" at night to detect hidden clouds and assess movement, which conventional infrared often misses.
To ensure accuracy and proficiency, always use high-quality, up-to-date satellite data sources like College of DuPage or NOAA STAR websites, as many apps offer inferior, reprocessed imagery.

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Sliding into the winter months, VMC gets a little bit more difficult to find. All pilots end up digging into their toolbox of weather resources to avoid the clouds and precipitation. METAR and TAF reports help out a lot, but one of the longtime favorites for this problem is weather satellite data. Of course to make the most out of this tool we need to understand a little more about the satellites we have available and how they collect the data.

How It Works

As you might guess, we can get a weather satellite by simply launching a camera into space. In fact, the very first satellite image of clouds came from a captured V-2 rocket launched in 1946 at White Sands, New Mexico. But designing a useful weather satellite system that can be used as part of a forecast system involves much more than simply launching a camera.